The Commonest Arguments For OPV Are Overrated

In the leadup to the Queensland election (which I'll have a roundup post on overnight) there's been some undignified arguing about whether Queensland should use optional or compulsory preferencing, with both major parties accusing each other of seeking to rig or corrupt the system.  Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has repeatedly used misleading language to attack compulsory preferencing, claiming that it forces voters to "vote for" candidates they don't want.  (It actually only forces them to rank them, which lacks the same level of obvious moral repugnance).   

In New South Wales, the debate about optional preferencing is typically a lot more sedate.  Optional preferencing has obvious formality benefits in NSW especially at state elections (though this can flow on to worse informal voting rates at federal).  Perhaps partly because OPV is in the NSW Constitution, and perhaps because any government wanting to do so would have a tough time getting its way in the upper house, there doesn't seem to be any serious push to get rid of it.  It also seems that for whatever reason, non-major-party candidates (who might be thought to be disadvantaged most by OPV since they most often rely on winning from behind) actually do well in NSW state elections, much better than in Victoria.  

However, in Queensland, where there's no upper house and the election winners can write the rules for the next election, the debate is an on and off culture war item between the major parties.   In Queensland, OPV first came in from the 1992 election after it was recommended by the post-Fitzgerald Electoral and Administrative Review Committee, although the arguments considered had very little to do with corruption.  It was repealed for the 2017 election in unusual circumstances.  Katter's Australian Party and the LNP had supported an electoral amendment bill to increase the number of seats from 89 to 93.  The minority Palaszczuk government moved an amendment to add the return of compulsory preferencing, which then passed and the whole package was then passed over the LNP's vehement objections.  

Detailed Comments On The Voter ID Debate

With the Bill scheduled to go before the House of Representatives tomorrow, I thought I should post some detailed comments about the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Voter Integrity) Bill 2021, aka "Voter ID".  The bill has been introduced to the House of Representatives but I have no knowledge of when it might be scheduled for a second reading vote.  On the one hand the government has struggled to make out the case that Voter ID as they propose it is necessary or would even work all that well in preventing deliberate voter fraud - the public evidence being that voter fraud is a relative non-problem.  On the other, opponents have been so inaccurate and overblown in their replies that the primary way their fearmongering will become true is if it so confuses their own supporters as to become a self-fulfilling prophecy and costs them votes.  That's a fate that would be self-inflicted for the way this issue has been debated.  Overall I would prefer not to be seeing this debate and instead to be seeing real bipartisan progress on long-standing problems with our electoral system such as the lack of savings provisions for unintended informal voting in the Reps and also the incorrect surplus method used in Senate counting.  

JSCEM's Recommendation For Optional Preferential Voting

Advance Summary

1. Coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters have recently recommended Optional Preferential Voting (OPV), but have provided very little discussion of that recommendation.

2. It is likely the government would have the numbers to pass OPV if both Coalition parties wanted to do so, but unclear as yet if they actually want to proceed.

3. Evidence from NSW state elections under OPV strongly suggests that it would significantly to severely disadvantage Labor if adopted federally. Evidence from Queensland is more confused.

4. The level of likely disadvantage to Labor under OPV could often result in a few federal seats having different results, but could be more severe when Labor holds majority government.   

5.Compulsory preferential voting leads to votes being disallowed because of irrelevant errors.  Reform to reduce or remove this problem is necessary.

6. Optional Preferential Voting has been defended on the grounds of allowing greater voter freedom, but it can also result in misleading campaigns to discourage preferencing and in cases where parties are disadvantaged because voters make incorrect assumptions.

7. Having OPV as a savings provision rather than a direct instruction to voters would solve most of the problems that OPV addresses with less disadvantages.

8. Labor's arguments against OPV in the report are weak.  

Queensland: Final Results And Poll Accuracy

The final results of the Queensland election are out.  Three years after being reduced to something that could fit in a Tarago, the ALP has won office in minority by what may just be a single seat.  (Katter's Australian Party spent so long milking press cover over their agonising decision on who to support that in the end government was formed without waiting for their decision.)  In one amazing echo, Peter Wellington gives Labor the numbers exactly as he did for a few months seventeen years ago.  In another, Antony Green estimates the 2PP at 50.9 to Labor, so virtually the same as 2009.  It is much as if 2012 just never happened.

There are two competing baseline 2PPs for the 2012 election, one of 62.8% to LNP and one of 63.1% to LNP, mainly depending on how you treat Gladstone.  On the latter the swing comes out at about 14%, on the former slightly less.  There may be slight revisions to the 2PP estimate for this election too, but in any case the swing was not much short of 14%, if at all.

In fact, the LNP were a trifle lucky to get as close to hanging on in seat terms as they did.  If the numbers are plugged into the ABC calculator (and crossbench defector/retiree seats assigned as they fell), it suggests 48-38-3 to Labor.  My own seat model, taking personal vote effects and probabilities into account, suggests 45-41-3 to Labor for that 2PP.  The LNP managed one more mainly because they had more very narrow seat wins.

Queensland: post-election wrap and postcount comments

Expected seat outcome: 44 ALP 42 LNP 2 KAP 1 IND

This is my thread for Queensland post-counting comments.  For the first week it probably won't be updated more than daily, if that, and probably won't be detailed.  After that if there is any life left I'll have a more serious look at remaining seats.

Thursday 12th 5:00: One of the few remaining close seats, Lockyer, has been declared, with Pauline Hanson missing out again, this time by a feeble 114 votes.  Non-exhausting Labor preferences split over 58% in Hanson's favour against the LNP.

Thursday 12th 3:30: What little chance existed of the Ferny Grove result being wiped has pretty much gone out the window with news that the number of votes exhausting at the exclusion of the allegedly ineligible PUP candidate is lower than Labor's margin in the seat.  This means that the argument that "had all those who voted 1 PUP and stopped instead voted 1 LNP the result would have been different" does not in fact apply and any remaining substance to an appeal will likely be disposed of based on precedent.

Thursday 12th: The LNP have survived by 126 votes in Mt Ommaney; had Labor won this seat it would have a majority for Labor.  Seats are being progressively declared, with most done now, and soon the election will be over.

Tuesday: I've added nothing more because there's nothing to add; all the leaders are keeping their lead and the expected outcome is done and dusted unless someone finds 500 votes under the sofa.  As noted by Antony Green, the LNP cannot try the usual gimmick of the defeated Premier going back to the House to test his support, because the defeated Premier is not a member of parliament, so it should be that Annastacia Palaszczuk is about to be commissioned as Premier of Queensland.  See also now Pollbludger.

Sunday: Chris Foley is too far behind in Maryborough and will be eliminated based on an indicative throw; Labor will win the seat.

Saturday: There are confused reports about whether Chris Foley has conceded Maryborough (he's apparently conceded he's unlikely to win, which is not the same as conceding he's definitely lost, not that concession makes any difference anyhow).  It appears that during an indicative preference throw he is about 900 behind Labor with about 4000 preferences (presumably from PUP) to add, which is a hopeless position.

Queensland Election Night Comments

Seats Apparently Won: LNP 39 ALP 42 OTHER 3 
2 likely ALP:  Mt Ommaney, Ferny Grove
Unclear LNP vs ALP: Mansfield, Whitsunday
Unclear ALP vs IND: Maryborough

Outcome: ALP government highly likely, unclear whether in majority.  LNP minority government possible but currently looks unlikely.

10:55 Labor's real-count leads in Mt Ommaney and Ferny Grove are both at 1.1% now.  Those will be hard to close down even with the size of post-count and the LNP needs at least one of them if not both.

10:35 On last-election preferences the current primaries would pan out to about a 50.5% 2PP for the LNP which would probably just have been enough to retain office (especially with likely pickup on postals.) If Labor wins outright then it will likely be because the LNP has been a tad unlucky with the split of close seats as well.  A lot will be asked about why all the late polls were all 52:48, though that is not a particularly bad miss and well within each's margin of error.  It seems there's been a late swing to Labor as undecided voters made up their minds, though this factor is normally no friend of the ALP or oppositions generally.

Queensland: Election Day Comments

Greetings from Corinna!  I don't have much time or much internet but it looks like I will be online tonight, but without access to any TV coverage.

All three polls overnight (ReachTEL, Newspoll and Galaxy) came out with a 52:48 2PP to the LNP so any polling aggregator is likely to have the LNP at something around that.  Mine has finished on 52.1% off primaries of 41.4% LNP, 37.1% ALP, 6.9% Green, 4.5% PUP, 9.7% Other. The important thing is not that 2PP figure but how you model it, and my projected seat tally has barely moved since the first polls after the campaign started showed slight LNP leads.  Out of the 82 major-party-held seats it expects the government to win the 2PP contest in about 48 and Labor in about 34.  Considering the crossbench seats Labor have good chances of two gains, while the LNP have probably as much risk as potential for gain.  (They might pick up Condamine and perhaps Gaven but are likely to lose Maryborough and at risk in a few others).  So I'm expecting something about 48 LNP, 36 Labor and five others.  

Hiatus / Queensland outlook

Just a brief note to warn readers that I could well be largely or entirely offline between now and February 6th, by reason of remote fieldwork - a commitment locked in long before it was apparent that the normally sleepy last week in January might actually be politically interesting.

I'm trying to arrange a degree of online access over the next week and a half, at least in order to provide running commentary on Queensland election night, but I do not yet know if these attempts will be successful, and given the remoteness of my fieldwork, they may not.  So if I don't pop up on election night I suggest keep an eye on Poll Bludger, and if watching the ABC coverage remember that the ABC computer is prone to calling individual seats prematurely.

I was hoping to do some detailed analysis of some fresh Queensland polling but there hasn't been anything of real note for a week.  After the last two significant polls by ReachTEL (52:48 to LNP, though off primaries that I translated to about 52.6% to LNP) and Morgan (50.5% to LNP), my aggregate had the LNP leading with 52.1% of the two-party vote, which came out on my model to a projection of 49 LNP, 36 Labor, and 4 other seats.  The Newspoll reported as showing a larger 13.6% swing to Labor was only an amalgam of three disparate seats that Labor was always expected to recover rather easily, and told us very little despite the headlines.

However, given the very strange, and massively inconsistent, campaign by the LNP over the last week, followed by PM Abbott reminding Queensland voters of his existence in a way that was impossible to ignore, I'm treating the now week-old data as much less reliable than normal. I'm  waiting with interest to see if this week brings any polling to show that the contest has sprung back into life. I'd go so far as to say it's a poor reflection on my state of birth if it hasn't, but the impact of campaign events and missteps on election outcomes, as declared by the commentariat, is often easy to overestimate.  That's all I have time for for now, alas, so hopefully I'll be able to get online during the week.  If not, I'll be back in force from the weekend of February 7th.

Queensland: Ashgrove, Redcliffe, And Other Snippets

This post just rounds up a number of issues in modelling the Queensland election.  There have been no fresh state polls since my previous post and I still think it's most likely the LNP will retain office with a narrow to moderate (but greatly reduced) majority.  I could have added these as updates to the roundup from the weekend or saved them for next time, but thought they'd work quite well as an article by themselves to stop the last one or the next one being too long.

ReachTEL Poll Of Ashgrove 
(Scroll down for Newspoll update Jan 17)

The first seat poll of the campaign has been released and there are no prizes for guessing which seat it covers.  A ReachTEL with a slightly larger sample size than last week's state Newspoll and Galaxy offers the candidates in ballot order and finds Campbell Newman effectively up 2.4 points in just over a month (after redistributing "undecided" from last time), and Kate Jones effectively down one point, with the other significant change being the disappearance of the Palmer United Party's three points (they're not running).  The 2PP is 53:47 to Jones and voters are almost exactly split as to who they think will win the seat.

This apparent improvement for Newman isn't a massive surprise given the apparent statewide improvement in LNP polling.  47% 2PP is a slightly better figure than would be expected at this stage, but not by enough to rule out statistical noise.  However, it's also possible that Newman is starting to punch above his weight (based on the expected swing statewide) or that this reflects a shift in state voting intention since last week's polls were taken. 

Queensland: LNP Leads After Week One

Queensland Aggregate: LNP 41.4 ALP 37.9 Green 7 PUP 4.6 Other 9
2PP based on last-election preferences: 51.8% to LNP
Election held now would most likely result in LNP majority government (approx 47-37-5)

Polling in late 2014 showed the Liberal National Party government in Queensland in a precarious if probably still just winning position (Beautiful One Day, Lineball The Next).  Following the calling of a snap election for January 31, however, the three polls so far released in the first week are a little less disastrous and suggest that an election held right now would likely result in a narrow LNP majority.

The ReachTEL poll was discussed in the previous article and has been followed by:

* A Galaxy (sample size 800, 7-8 Jan) with a 2PP of 52-48 to the LNP off primaries of 41-38 with 8 for the Greens, a remarkably feeble 3 for Palmer United and 10 for Others including KAP. 

* A Newspoll (sample size 801, 6-8 Jan) with a 2PP of 53-47 to the LNP off primaries of 42-37 with 7 for the Greens, 1 for KAP and 13 for Others including PUP.

Note that these polls were taken entirely before the announcement that Labor deputy leader Tim Mulherin would retire.

Queensland: Beautiful One Day, Lineball The Next

Estimated Queensland state 2PP based on late 2014 polling and first 2015 poll: 50.2-49.8 to LNP (revised from 50.1 to ALP)
LNP would probably retain office in an election "held now", but would be at substantial risk of loss of majority
(This is not a prediction of the election result yet, as voting intentions may change)

With the Victorian election and its unsurprising result out of the way, it is time to look north to a much murkier contest.  The Queensland state election could in theory be held as late as June, but the government's three-year anniversary comes up in late March, and there are persistent rumours that it will be called slightly earlier, for late February or early March.  I previously covered Queensland state polling in four articles last year:

Is Campbell Newman Actually In Trouble? (late April through June)
Careful With That Queensland Pendulum, Eugene (July)
Recent Queensland and Victorian Polling (August)
Recent Polling In Four States (October)

The story for much of 2014 was pretty similar.  The Newman government held a small to modest aggregated 2PP lead and was facing a swing that would cost it dozens of seats but not necessarily government.  Particular polls were sometimes interpreted as showing that the government would actually lose, but either those polls were outliers or the interpretation was dodgy.  The problem always was that one of the doomed seats, all else being equal, was Premier Campbell Newman's own seat of Ashgrove, and all the polling in Ashgrove suggested that all else was in fact equal and that if the election was even remotely close then the Premier's seat would be toast.  Furthermore, Newman at various stages through the year was mildly to distinctly unpopular both in his own seat and in Queensland as a whole.