Poll Roundup: Ghosts of 1996 and 2007 Edition

2PP Aggregate: 54.1 to Labor (+0.9 since last week)
(Weighted for time only, no house effects or quality weightings)
If the normal range of polling to result relationships applies, Labor is very likely to win

I've been very time-challenged this election (expending much of last night refuting an American know-all and sundry reply-guys about our preferencing system on Twitter probably didn't help) but finally, maybe, I can get something out in time for an article about the state of national polling. 

As an overall summary, Labor suffered alarmingly rapid losses in support during the first week and a half of the campaign as documented in the previous edition, but the Coalition's position did not improve over the next two weeks, and now in the latest round of polling there has been a bit of a blowout.  Labor's lead is so large now that the Coalition is extremely unlikely to win by normal means.  What hope remains for the current government is that the polls are even more wrong than last time (despite everything some of them have done to repair it) or that they are about or nearly as wrong as last time and the government makes some improvements over the final week and a half then gets lucky with the seat distribution and scrambles back, perhaps with a sub-50 2PP.  It's not all over yet, but on the other hand the prospect of a decisive Labor win is much stronger now than it looked even three weeks ago.

A Vote For A Party Is Not A Vote For Any Other Party

I am hoping to put out a much-belated Poll Roundup later today or overnight (in short, Labor is currently ahead to such an extent that a polling failure at least as large as 2019 if not larger is probably now the Coalition's best remaining chance of winning, and a lopsided result is a growing chance.)  But I have been distracted yet again, this time by the need to comment on a form of electoral misinformation that I've found especially annoying at this election.  

Legislative Council 2022: Elwick, Huon and McIntyre Live

Elwick: CALLED (7:12 pm) Willie (ALP) retains

Huon: Harris (IND) has comfortably defeated Thorpe (ALP).

McIntyre: CALLED (6:40 pm) Rattray (IND) retains

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Live comments (scrolls to top)
All updates are unofficial, check the TEC site for official figures

Tuesday night Well, Labor has indeed lost the seat they had such a great win in in 2020 after enough left-wing voters preferred a somewhat conservative independent to Labor to get Dean Harriss into his father's old seat.  If Harriss avoids sticking too close to the government and works hard he could be there for a long time.

The new numbers

Labor 4 (-1)

Liberal 4

Left IND 4

Right-ish IND 3 (+1) (pending Harriss's actual voting behaviour)

This is the first gain by an independent from a major party since Rumney 2011.

Labor holds the Presidency so this may generate tied votes on which Craig Farrell's statement that he would not necessarily follow chairing conventions may be tested.  

Beautiful Losers: Australia's Leading Anti-Bellwether Seats

After the 2018 FIDE (chess) elections, a member of the English delegation told me that his nation had kept alive their proud tradition of always supporting the losing side.  Having voted for various opponents of the long-term FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, England had switched to Ilyumzhinov's replacement Georgios Makropoulos just in time for the incumbent regime to be booted.  Perhaps this comment was distantly in my mind a couple of weeks ago when someone tweeted a comment referring to Bass as a bellwether seat.  Bass, I thought, is not a bellwether seat at all; it's more like a seat that hits the incumbent over the head with a bell no matter what is going on nationwide.  Then I thought, how about anti-bellwether seats?  Seats that have a history of nearly always voting for the party that loses?  I hope to have the time and energy for more central things in the coming week but for now I present some findings on this little amusement.

Bellwether or litmus seats (where there is a long history of whoever wins always or nearly always forming government) are much discussed, the idea being that since they have a history of being predictive they might contain some special insight into where a campaign is going.  Past champions have included Macarthur (voted for the winning party 23 times in a row 1949-2004) and Eden-Monaro (15 in a row 1972-2013).  The current leader is Robertson (14 in a row, 1983-present).   In theory, a bellwether is a perennial marginal seat that is a good microcosm of the nation, though in practice bellwether streaks involve a great amount of luck.   It might be possible to find a better predictive measure of 'as goes seat X, so goes the nation' than winning streak - some combination of average 2PP lean and correlation with the national swing, for example.

2022 Senate How To Vote Cards: Variants, Changes and Other Comments

This is a page where I hope to keep track of cases where parties are issuing multiple Senate How To Vote card recommendations (eg with regional differences) or else change their published Senate HTV to something different to what is showing on the ABC website.  Please notify cases in comments, on Twitter (@kevinbonham) or to my email (link via profile).   The ABC does a brilliant job of archiving Senate How To Votes but tends to only store one version for each state and not keep track of variants.  I want to try to keep track of the variants because doing so is useful in calculating the rate at which Senate cards are followed for articles like this.  Note that I am not myself keeping lists of the main HTVs, except in the case of Tasmania.

Not that many voters actually follow Senate HTVs.  As noted in the linked article, in 2019 the rate by state among voters voting above the line was in the 20-30% range for the Coalition, 15-20 for Labor, 7-15 for Greens and mostly 0-10 for other parties.  These figures were a little lower than in 2016.  In Tasmania, the follow rates are almost negligible, and approaching 30% of voters vote below the line anyway.  Unlike in the House of Representatives, where providing a single order for voters to copy is vital for trying to control the informal voting rate, in the Senate if a voter votes 1 above the line then their vote is saved and counted, provided there is only one 1.  (It counts for that party only, and once all their candidates are elected or excluded it exhausts.)  

How To Make Best Use Of Your 2022 Senate Vote

People are starting to vote already (by post) so I thought I'd get a revised version of this guide up for this year.  It is largely copied from the previous one but I have made a few minor changes and dropped some no longer relevant content.   Many regular readers of the site will already be aware of many of the points below.  I hope the main part of the post will also be useful, however, for those who want to know what advice to give less politically engaged (or more easily confused) voters.  I will vote below the line and number every square, and I'm sure many other readers will too (at least in the smaller states!), but not everyone is up for that.

Under the system introduced in 2016, voters determine where their preferences go - there is no longer any "group ticket voting" in which if you vote for one party, your preference also goes to another.  Voters have great flexibility - they can vote above the line (in which case they are asked to number at least six boxes) or below the line (in which case they are asked to number at least twelve).  Voters who vote below the line are no longer forced to number all the boxes.  

This freedom is fantastic, but it's still taking some getting used to, and most voters are not using their vote in the most effective way they could.  If you don't have time to use your vote effectively and just want to get out of the polling box as fast as you like, that's fine, that's up to you.  But not making the best use of your vote might end up helping a party you can't stand beat one you are merely disappointed by.  This guide tells you how to avoid that, if you want to.   

Here I give some answers to the sorts of questions people are asking or likely to ask about the system.  At the bottom there is a section on tactical voting for advanced players only.  The vast majority of readers should stop when they get to that point.

Tasmania Senate 2022: Prospects and Guide

 SUMMARY: 

Likely 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 JLN if Lambie Network vote mostly holds up
If Lambie Network vote crashes then multi-party contest for final seat

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If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.

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Tasmania's list of Senate candidates has been released.  Tasmania has 39 candidates in 14 groups with two ungrouped, down from 44 candidates in 16 groups plus four ungrouped in 2019.  Of the groups that ran columns last time, two have disbanded, two are not running and one (Garland) has switched to the Reps.  Three groups that did not run last time are running, one of which (Local Party) is new for this election.  None of the groups that ran last time were direct victims of the recent cull of ballot clutter.  One recognisable impact of the 1500 member rule to Tasmania is that Steve Mav has joined One Nation instead of founding his own party.  

Poll Roundup: Federal Hung Parliament Club Edition

CROSS-POLL AVERAGE 52.6 TO LABOR (-2.0 in two weeks)

Aggregate of recent polls assuming no overall house effects 53.2 to Labor

Recent Newspoll would not be likely to produce a hung parliament if replicated

Significant chance of hung parliament based not on most current polls, but rather on historic pattern of leads shrinking.  

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Welcome back to another edition of Poll Roundup.  At the time of the last edition the Labor Opposition was a very long way in front but things have since got a lot closer.  I covered some of this at the start of a more recent piece but following today's Newspoll, hung parliament talk has become widespread.  Sectors of the press gallery are embarrassing themselves more than usual, while sectors of the press gallery that always embarrass themselves are doing what they do best.  

"Hung parliament club" is my nickname for a circle of usual suspects in the Tasmanian left and commentariat who continually argue that hung parliaments in Tasmanian state elections are both extremely likely and uncontentiously desirable.  My view is that their constant public hankering after minority situations makes majority government more likely, not less.  Federally, there have been echoes of this in Adam Bandt's constant poll-spinning that uses various unsound arguments to claim a "power-sharing parliament" is highly likely.  However overall the federal variant of hung parliament club makes even weaker claims about the likelihood of a hung parliament than are seen in Tasmania, and then goes on to claim that a hung parliament could lead to crazy chaos and an immediate fresh election.  The main suspects here are innumerate types in the Canberra press gallery, who seem to have listened to each other too much (or perhaps to party hacks or low-grade pollsters) instead of seeking any kind of informed take on how to interpret the numbers. 

Prospects for the 2022 Senate Election

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Donations welcome!

If you find my coverage useful please consider donating to support the large amount of time I spend working on this site.  Donations can be made by the Paypal button in the sidebar or email me via the address in my profile for my account details.  Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to do so.
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This is a general (and maths-heavy) piece giving assessments of the Senate contest in each state and territory and overall. A detailed Senate guide for Tasmania will be released soon after the announcement of nominations for the state.  Firstly, a look at which Senate seats are up for grabs at this election and which are continuing until 2025 (barring a double dissolution):

The ACT and NT seats are recontested every election.  At present the Coalition is three short of a majority and can pass legislation supported by Stirling Griff, Rex Patrick and Jacqui Lambie, or by any one of these plus One Nation.  The ability to block enquiries, motions and disallowances in the Senate is also very important and here the Coalition and One Nation have a "blocking majority" of exactly half the seats.