Tasmania Embraces Chaos: 2024 Election Tallyboard And Summary

TASMANIA 2024: Liberal Minority Government Expected (Subject to will of the parliament)

Labor appears to be not seeking to form government 

Rebecca White resigned leadership, Dean Winter to contest, Josh Willie and others may contest

FINAL RESULT  LIB 14 ALP 10 GRN 5 JLN 3 IND 3

Links to seat postcount pages Bass Braddon Clark Franklin Lyons

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Friday 5 April

Dean Winter has publicly announced that he is running for leader, with what he believes is the support of the Labor caucus. 

Informal Vote: Not Good Enough!

Ahead of the release of primary figures the TEC has advised that the informal vote increased from 5.13% in 2021 to 6.31%.  This suggests the informal vote rose with more counting as, eg, cases of duplicate numbers that had been missed on the night were spotted.  6.31% is a bad, though not catastrophic, result.  I warned that an increase in informal voting was likely because votes that were formal at the last election (1-5 with errors later) were informal at this election if the errors were at 6 and 7, but a full review will be needed to detect the specific causes of the increase - which might also be partly down to deliberate informal voting, an increased number of columns, etc.  Certainly I saw some informal votes that should have been saved under transitional savings provisions that I recommended.  In one case a voter had voted 1-6 within the Franklin Greens ticket, leaving a 7th Green blank, then numbered 8-31 in other columns.  The result of this is that their vote did not count at all, whereas in the ACT it would have been good for their first six candidates.  I can only hope that the increased informal rate does not change any outcomes (often it doesn't).   Incidentally, 2024 is the second highest informal vote ever, behind 1946 when for some reason 10.08% of votes were informal (possibly caused by confusing ballot instructions around the introduction of columns).  

The parliament - primarily the government - is to blame for not trying to fix this problem by at least allowing that a vote that was formal in 2021 would be formal in 2024.  However the TEC is also to blame because it has advised the government against measures that might increase exhaust and hence 

"reduce the effectiveness and accuracy of the Hare-Clark counting process".  This stance is addressed in my submission (Hare-Clark Is Not A Rolls-Royce System section) - what really reduces the effectiveness and accuracy of the system is excluding votes from it for no good reason. 

EMRS: Liberals Have Big Lead But Still Well Short Of 50

This article is part of my 2024 Tasmanian state election coverage - link to main article page

EMRS Liberal 39 Labor 26 (-3) Greens 12 JLN 9 IND 14 others 1 
Liberals would clearly be largest party

Seat estimate if poll is correct Lib 15-16 ALP 10 Grn 2-3  JLN 2-3 IND 3-5

Just one poll - there will be others!

Advance Comments

A quarterly poll by Tasmania's most experienced state pollster EMRS, which has a rather good track record, has just dropped.  It shows a complex scenario that is also, if correct, a sorry one for Labor.  This poll will have the Liberals happy in that it has them as the only party within reach of a majority while Labor are bleeding votes to independents and JLN.  It follows a YouGov poll that differed mainly in having the Liberals in the low 30s and a much higher Lambie vote.   The poll suggests that if there is a hung parliament, it will be one where Labor will only be able to govern deeply in minority with multiple partners, while the Liberals may have simpler paths to government if anyone will help them.  

EMRS: No Real Change In Second Rockliff Era Poll (plus comments re 35 seats)

EMRS (Tasmania): Liberal 41 (+2) Labor 31 (+1) Greens 13 (=) IND 14 (-1) others 1 (-2)

Poll suggests Liberals largest party with Greens and/or Independents holding balance of power if election "held now"

Independent vote is probably being overestimated

It seems like the last one wasn't long ago (and indeed the interval was shorter than normal) but an EMRS poll of Tasmanian voting intention taken from the 8th to the 11th of August has just been released.  After an uptick in the previous poll that could have been caused by federal election contamination, the collective "others" are down three points to 15% in this poll, the voting intentions for which are almost identical to the March poll, the last under Peter Gutwein's leadership.  

The news seems moderately good for the now Rockliff government.  They hold a 10% lead, Labor has still to break out of the very low 30s, and nobody except the government is within cooee of forming a majority.  The government's lead would almost certainly not result in a majority if the votes recorded in the poll were cast as such at an election, but history suggests that doesn't matter.  Governments with slender leads or even no lead at all at points through the term perked up as the election approached (or well before it with a big hand from pandemic management) and won majorities in 2006, 2018 and 2021.  It's necessary to go back to the pre-EMRS 1996 election for the last case where a government with any sort of real polling lead did not win a majority.  The bandwagons seen in 2006 and 2018 may reflect the tactics of voters who want to avoid minority government, but it can also be argued that they were caused by campaign factors in those two elections.