Bradfield Court Of Disputed Returns Challenge

BRADFIELD (NSW, IND, 0.01)
Disputed Returns challenge to win by Nicolette Boele over Gisele Kapterian (Lib) by 26 votes

This is an ongoing thread to follow the challenge by Gisele Kapterian (Liberal) to Nicolette Boele's (IND) victory by 26 votes in the seat of Bradfield.  This is the first CDR challenge by a candidate to be based on the count, rather than eligibility or alleged misconduct issues, since Fran Bailey's (Liberal) win in McEwen 2007 was challenged by now MP for the seat Rob Mitchell (ALP).  On comments about the case available so far the case is likely to be very similar to McEwen in proceedings.

I previously covered the main part of the Bradfield postcount in a general teal seat postcount thread and the late postcount (distribution of preferences phase) and recount in a Bradfield specific thread.  I also covered the Goldstein partial recount and count history on a separate thread that may be useful for comparisons.  

Boele had been down for the count at times in the initial count but got back up again, mainly on a very strong batch of out of electorate prepolls followed by the very last batch of postals breaking strongly to her (not such an unusual thing).  She went into the distribution of preferences 40 votes ahead but dropped back through the distribution to finish it 8 votes behind.  This is not surprising because in the distribution the votes that get the most attention are votes for minor candidates, so the candidate more reliant on preferences is more likely to suffer if votes are found to be informal on further scrutiny.  The recount has the opposite dynamic - at this stage the primary votes of the leaders have been less checked than the preferences, and so this can hurt the primary vote leader.  Which it did.  Boele started very slowly in the recount and was still three votes behind and running out of booths when there was a big shift to her in the Turramurra PPVC, which was the last big prepoll to be recounted.  Boele also then made gains in other booths in the St Ives and Turramurra areas and finished 26 votes ahead.  

2025 Late Postcount And Expected Recount: Bradfield

And it has come to this ..

BRADFIELD (Lib vs IND est 2.5%) 

Gisele Kapterian (Lib) vs Nicolette Boele (IND) 
Boele led by 40 votes at end of indicative 2CP count.

Kapterian led by 8 votes at the end of distribution of preferences

Automatic recount started Monday 26 May

Boele has won by 26 votes after full recount

Boele will be seated, result can be challenged but will be an MP pending any case

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Poll Roundup: Budget Does Nothing As Per Normal

2PP Aggregate 51.1 To ALP (2022 preferences) (-0.1 since end of last week)

With One Nation adjustment 50.5 to ALP
If polls are accurate, Labor would most likely win election "held now" (probably in minority but with a significant chance of majority)

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This was intended to be a rolling Budget week poll roundup but over the Budget poll release weekend I was in Melbourne and too busy to write much, so it will have to be a retro one instead.  I was in Melbourne for primarily non-election reasons, staying in the electorate of Deakin with trips to several surrounding electorates.  I didn't see quite as much electoral activity as I expected at this early stage, though while on a bus through Warrandyte I did happen to look out the window and see the Member for Menzies at a fair.  

It's becoming better known in media circles that the once much anticipated "budget bounce" in polling is an elusive beast that is seldom sighted outside Coalition government election years, and there was less speculation about it this year than usual.  My own aggregate has found very little movement in the post-Budget polls, and such overall movement as it has found (Labor losing 0.1% since the end of last week) is because of the way it is responding to Morgan's recent strong results for Labor.  

The Draft Boundaries Would Not Put Labor On The Edge Of Minority

The current round of draft redistributions is complete with the release of the NSW proposal today, following the Victorian and WA proposals two weeks ago.  While the Victorian redistribution led to an outbreak of unsound psephology with false claims that the Kooyong redistribution greatly favoured the Liberal Party (I wrote about this for Crikey), the NSW washup has been pretty sensible, for the first day at least.  One thing I have seen that seems hard to credit is the idea that Kylea Tink, whose seat is proposed to be abolished, would win the now even more marginal Bennelong off two major parties fighting tooth and nail for it.  This is a general article about the impact of the draft changes.  A note that I am not a primary source for redistribution margin estimates, and am here largely relying on the work of Ben Raue, William Bowe and Antony Green for those.

The Victorian draft proposes that part of the boundary of Kooyong expands to take in part of Higgins.  The key issue in the shortlived Frydenberg-comeback debacle was that there's no obvious way to project how an independent would have done if their seat is expanded into an area they didn't previously run in.  One can use the 2022 preference flows from the present Kooyong to distribute votes for Labor and the Greens et al between the Liberals and Monique Ryan (IND) as if Ryan had been running in the new bits, but that means assigning Ryan a primary vote of zero in the new part.  It's saying that voters who would vote 1 Ryan 2 Liberal, for instance, don't exist in the new bit, but we know they do exist in the old bit, or she would not have won the seat.