Nominations closed yesterday in Victoria for the upcoming state election, and there has been a huge surge in the number of candidates running.
896 candidates are running: 351 for the Legislative Council and 545 for the Legislative Assembly. This is an 8.6% increase in the lower house, and a whopping 68% increase in candidates running for the Legislative Council.
This reflects a large surge in the number of parties registered for the Victorian election. It seems likely that this surge in upper house parties and candidates is a flow-on from last year’s federal election, which saw a number of minor parties winning seats in the Senate.
The Victorian Legislative Council is elected by a similar system to the Senate, except with a slightly higher quota due to each region electing five MLCs, instead of six Senators. In addition, voters can vote below-the-line much more easily – a ballot that numbers five boxes below the line is formal.
Sixteen parties are running candidates for the Legislative Assembly. These parties include Labor, Liberal, Greens and Nationals, as well as:
- Country Alliance
- Animal Justice Party
- Australian Christians
- People Power
- Rise Up Australia
- Socialist Alliance
- Sex Party
- Voice for the West
- Family First
- Democratic Labour
- Basics Rock ‘n’ Roll Party
- Shooters and Fishers Party
Interestingly, the Palmer United Party did not run any candidates for the Legislative Assembly.
Labor and the Greens both ran candidates in all seats. The Coalition also ran candidates in all seats. In 76 seats, the Liberal Party ran, and in eight seats the Nationals ran. In four seats, both parties ran, for a total of 92 candidates.
For other minor parties, four parties ran a large number of candidates: 40 Family First candidates, 38 Country Alliance candidates, 32 Rise Up Australia candidates and 29 Australian Christians candidates. The Basics Rock ‘n’ Roll Party is running only one candidate.
In addition, 91 candidates are running as independents.
As usual, I have coded the candidates by gender – although there are seven candidates who I couldn’t identify – they don’t appear to have any public photograph or biography that could be used to identify their gender.
As I foreshadowed last week, the ALP produced a team of candidates that includes a lot more women than the Coalition or the Greens. 44.3% of Labor lower house candidates are men, compared to 28.4% of Greens, 26.3% of Liberals and 25% of Nationals.
If you’re interested, you can view the list of candidates, including my coding for gender, party and whether someone is a sitting MP. In the next few days, I will also add in ballot order.
It will take me a few days to update each electorate page, including upper house region pages, with the new candidate listings, due to the busy electoral weekend.
‘44.3% of Labor lower house candidates are men… ‘ you meant women obviously.
The VEC were originally including the candidates’ title in the daily nomination summary files, but unfortunately seem to have stopped that.
The independent in Oakleigh is male. Sorry I forgot to note that in my comment, but I remember he was a ‘Mr’ in the earlier VEC file.
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