I have a list of sixteen seats which I think are close enough to pay further attention over the next few days as more votes flow in.
In this article I want to explain what data we will be receiving which will help us project forward in each electorate and hopefully narrow the number of undecided seats.
These seats are Batman, Capricornia, Chisholm, Cowan, Dickson, Dunkley, Flynn, Forde, Gilmore, Grey, Herbert, Hindmarsh, La Trobe, Melbourne Ports, Petrie and Robertson. In thirteen of these seats the race is a conventional Labor-Coalition race, and it’s just a matter of tracking how close the vote is as extra votes report. In Batman, the race is between Labor and the Greens, but the same principle applies.
In Melbourne Ports, the question is whether the Greens can get ahead of Labor, which could see Greens or (more likely) Liberal win the seat.
In Grey, we are waiting for a two-candidate-preferred count between Liberal and Nick Xenophon Team to determine the result – that count may well make it clear who will win.
The remaining 134 seats split 65 Coalition, 64 Labor, 2 independent, and one each for the Greens, Katter’s Australian Party and the Nick Xenophon Team.
Firstly I want to look at the preference count in Grey. Preferences began to be distributed this afternoon, and these figures have been reported for four out of 124 booths. So far NXT candidate Andrea Proudfoot leads with just over 56% of the vote, but it’s a small sample.
These booths are mostly in the Port Augusta area, which was relatively strong for NXT. When you take the preference flows in these four booths and apply them to the rest of the seat, the Liberal Party comes out on top with 51.2%.
Of course different areas can flow differently, and it’s hard to extrapolate – but NXT probably needs to get stronger preference flows in the remaining booths to win.
In the other fifteen seats, we will be concentrating on the incoming declaration votes. These votes fall into four categories:
- Postal votes
- Provisional votes
- Absent votes
- Declaration pre-poll votes (effectively absent pre-poll)
Counting has paused for today and tomorrow to allow the AEC to securely swap around those absent and pre-poll votes that need to move between electorates. A majority of postal votes have already been returned to each electorate, but there is still time for more to arrive.
It’s possible to track the number of votes in each category which are yet to be counted, which is what we’ll be doing over the next few days. We can also extrapolate how each bundle of votes is likely to break based on how postal, absent and pre-poll votes flowed in 2013, which I’ll be doing over coming days.
For now I just leave you with this summary of the number of declaration votes which have been returned to each seat.
| Seat | Absent | Provisional | Pre-poll | Postal | Postal yet to return |
| Batman | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8088 | 4104 |
| Capricornia | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7968 | 3680 |
| Chisholm | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11767 | 4411 |
| Cowan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5276 | 2116 |
| Dickson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9802 | 3714 |
| Dunkley | 0 | 1617 | 195 | 12318 | 4032 |
| Flynn | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9518 | 5422 |
| Forde | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8966 | 4610 |
| Gilmore | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5373 | 2478 |
| Herbert | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6126 | 5194 |
| Hindmarsh | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7843 | 3684 |
| La Trobe | 0 | 1479 | 0 | 11711 | 4460 |
| Petrie | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10574 | 4095 |
| Robertson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5855 | 2513 |
| Melbourne Ports | 0 | 25 | 0 | 11762 | 6436 |
Counting of these votes will commence on Tuesday.
Dear Ben
Thank you for your effort. It appears many Early voters have NOT been changed during the campaign at all. With many pre-poll results being posted now- the results seem to be following the election night results with only a slight advantage to some sitting m.p.’s. Grant
Great summary…
Worthwhile looking at the number of postals that came through LNP channels, particularly where other parties did not run a postal vote campaign.
Using the same order as above, my very quick summary of the AEC postal vote data is
(where AEC is combination of OPVA, Paper and GPV)
(I also added GREY)
_______ AEC LNP ALP Other
BATMAN 57.8% 0.4% 41.7% 0.2% VIC – Only ALP, 5052 addl
CAPRICO 56.6% 43.3% 0.1% 0.0% QLD – Only LNP, 5048
CHISHOL 46.2% 37.5% 16.2% 0.1% VIC – LNP with 2.3x, 3452
COWAN 64.0% 35.9% 0.0% 0.1% WA – Only LNP, 2690
DICKSON 66.2% 33.3% 0.1% 0.3% QLD – Only LNP, 4495
DUNKLEY 42.5% 43.8% 13.6% 0.1% VIC – LNP with 3.3x, 4942
FLYNN 54.6% 43.4% 2.0% 0.0% QLD – Only LNP, 6184
FORDE 57.0% 42.7% 0.2% 0.1% QLD – Only LNP, 5827
GILMORE 54.8% 43.4% 0.0% 1.8% NSW – Only LNP, 3432
HERBER 59.3% 38.8% 0.0% 1.9% QLD – Only LNP, 4389
HINDMAR 46.4% 29.8% 10.7% 13.1% SA – All 3, LNP 2.3x, 2203
LATROB 42.0% 47.8% 10.1% 0.0% VIC – LNP 5x, 6166
PETRIE 50.0% 47.4% 2.5% 0.1% QLD – Only LNP, 6591
ROBERT 67.0% 32.8% 0.0% 0.1% NSW – Only LNP, 2744
MELB PT 62.7% 22.2% 14.6% 0.5% VIC – No Greens, 1404 over ALP
GREY 55.1% 25.1% 2.0% 17.8% SA – LNP 1.5x NXT, 570 over other
Apart from Batman (which has 5000 ALP postals), Hindmarsh (where LNP have 2000 more), Grey (600 more LNP than NXT), Melbourne Ports
The other 12 seats (mostly QLD and VIC) are delivering between 2500 and 6200 postal votes that were requested after a LNP flyer and delivered with an LNP HTV card (even if these only split 60/40 thats an extra 500-1200 tally movement)
Whilst I don’t think they deserve to be on your list may also tighten contests in Longman and Lindsay
LINDSAY 71.0% 28.9% 0.0% 0.1% NSW, Only LNP, 2071
LONGMN 58.7% 41.1% 0.1% 0.1% QLD, Only LNP, 5222
If there IS another seat where a NXT situation may possibly arise, it may be Sturt.
Pyne’s primary is currently below 45% and LAB is at 22.62% with NXT at 20.55%. In primary votes, LAB 17172 NXT 15600, a gap of 1572. FF at 3.13% should almost certainly run overwhelmingly to Pyne but won’t put him over the line.
GRN picked up 6.87% 5213 votes with AJP 1.21% 916 & an Indie 0.75% 566 votes. If GRN prefs DO favour NXT ahead of LAB thus pushing NXT into the final run-off then it may be a wee bit of a squeeze for Christopher.
Does anyone have any info on the estimated 2PP state-by-state? Only saw some figures from election night.
The Greens how to vote in Sturt put Labor above NXT, so it depends how much greens follow how to votes (IIRC, not much)
It will also be interesting to see who came 2nd in seats like Mackellar and Warringah and North Sydney. When do they do the full preference distribution?
If I might comment on Melbourne Ports, where I lived for 30 years. There’s a common misconception that Michael Danby gets all the Jewish vote and that’s why he hangs on to the seat. In fact most Jews vote Liberal, although Danby certainly gets more Jewish votes than any other Labor candidate would. This is relevant when we consider the 17,000 outstanding postal votes. These are cast mainly by religious Jews who can’t vote on Saturdays. The religious Jews are more conservative than the secular ones, so these votes will favour the Liberals (by 54 to 46% in 2013). But they will favour the Greens least of all, since very few Jews will have voted for a party they see as anti-Israel and therefore anti-Jewish. So if the critical question is whether the Greens can overtake Labor and come second, the postal vote will work heavily against that happening. That’s why the Danby camp tell me that they are confident of retaining the seat.
Question re Postal Votes .. Do the AEC accept any votes postmarked after the election closing day? If so, this is open to corruption by the parties who organized the postal votes in that they could now go and influence the voter.
Ben .. Are the Postal votes to be returned a part of your Postal Vote column or are they added on to get the total?
Additionally, would any Absentee votes have been counted as yet?
“Postal yet to return” is calculated by finding how many postal votes were issued and then subtracting those returned (although some of those returned have been rejected, and thus the total of these two columns is less than the total postal votes issued).
No Absent votes have been counted – my understanding is that they are being returned to the home electorate today and by the end of today we’ll have some sense of their scale.
Logically, we should expect that the massive increase in pre-polling will reduce the number of absents and postals, but I’m not sure if that logic will hold up in practice.
I think the reduction in polling places and the number of boundary changes may mean more absents.
Certainly near me where they used a minor road as the new boundary, the closest centre to me (only 50m inside the old electorate) was not made a dual centre, despite the next closest centre being over 1km away.
Votes cast fell by 60% compared to 2013 – depsite massive queues – I suspect meaning an awful lot of absentee votes at this booth
Interesting on Hindmarsh, SA
that one booth (Ascot Park) hasn’t had a 2PP figure returned. Only 918 votes but split ALP/LNP/NXT 38/28/18.
Closest comparison would be Brooklyn Park at 44/28/17 which delivered a 62/38 2PP
If you assume a 60/40 split thats another 175 votes added to the thin 432 vote lead.
Dubopov when was the last time you saw an envelope postmarked?
Andrew .. this morning
Kevin Bonham’s blog, has excellent summary of the close seats:.
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/2016-house-of-reps-postcount-vanilla.html#comment-form
Based on the previous declaration votes he has summarised there, the results actually seem pretty clear. He list the undecided seats as Capricornia, Chisholm, Cowan, Dunkley, Flynn, Forde, Gilmore, Herbert, Hindmarsh & Grey. Before taking these into account the are 66 ALP, 69 LNP & 5 OTH.
However, to me, the only genuinely undecided seats appear to be Forde and Hindmarsh, with Hindmarsh leaning ALP and Forde 50/50. Leaving these aside there are 75 LNP, 5 cross-benchers and 68 ALP.
It seems all over rover in Capricornia and Flynn, these will be LNP holds. I remember Capricornia was in doubt last time also and Landry won easily in the end – now she also has incumbency. In 2007 the ALP had Flynn with 52% on the night and ended of just squeaking in by a couple hundred votes. Bonham’s blog gives the dec votes for the last 3 elections here and the gains to the LNP are all well above what they require. I think this is mostly postal votes from interior areas of both these electorates -pastoral properties mostly, not FIFO workers.
Chisholm and Dunkley also look safe for LNP, they are in the lead and also won the dec votes substantially last time. Hard to see whats in doubt in either of these.
Herbert and Cowan look good for the ALP, but LNP incumbency means they are both less certain than Chisholm and Dunkley are for the Libs. I’d expect the gap to close significantly, just not enough. Worth noting that the Cowan dec votes from 2013 are also based on much better boundaries for the Libs last time and they still don’t get even half way on the current gap. In Herbert, Jones was also the incumbent in 2013 and he needs to also more than double his gain on declaration votes, against the swing.
Grey is a little bit of a grey area, I had that down as an almost certain NXT gain on the night but these Port Augusta results look pretty definitive to me now. New 2PP results have just come in from a booth in Barker and the preferences seem to be spraying everywhere. Looks like Grey will be a present to the Libs from the ALP head office -they issued an open ticket here!
Gilmore is perhaps the only other one that I’d consider a little iffy, despite Sudmalis now being the incumbent, as the ALP will have run a much harder campaign, the gain on declarations is small enough to be overturned if it follows the changed pattern of ordinary votes and there have been boundary changes (though i suspect these may help Sudmalis on absent votes by removing Shellharbour).
To summarise – most probably the Libs have 75, with two outstanding – Forde and Hindmarsh. I expect them to probably lose Hindmarsh (70% chance), so whether they get to a majority, depends on Forde – and that seems to be as close to 50/50 as you can get!
Ascot Park 2PP finally dropped in Hindmarsh, SA delivering a net 207 to ALP, and taking lead to 639.
Still not a win for the ALP but a lot safer given they do have some postals. Key is probably going to be the NXT postals
Two things, maybe three.
On Adam’s comment about Melbourne Ports, it is worth noting that last time Michael Danby’s lead shrank by 1.72 percentage points between the end of Saturday night and the actual result. His margin this time is big enough to withstand that, but it bears out Adam’s point about religious Jews voting Liberal. It’s worth noting that in 2013 the Liberals even won most of the polling booths in Caulfield.
Does anyone understand why the boundaries of Melbourne Ports and Higgins have been drawn as they are? It looks like a gerrymander, but with no purpose. For community of interest, it would make far more sense to have South Yarra, Prahran and Windsor entire in Melbourne Ports than split between two seats as they are now. The Caulfield areas are far more like Higgins than they are like inner city Melbourne Ports.
Second, Ben, did you ever update the list of seat polls you published two weeks ago? Their poor performance was I think largely to blame for misleading people about how the election would go.
I don’t think Bonham has factored in the unique elements of this election compared with 2007-2013. Flynn, in particular, is a complicating factor, as it was created for 2007, so there is no 2004 to compare against.
I would assert that on at least two counts, 2016 has resemblance to 2004 in terms of patterns (not results). 2004 was in a school holiday period like 2016 was, and events over the last week or so skewed the result in the Coalition’s favour… which impacted the 2004 extraordinary (that is, non-ordinary) votes.
I think the absent votes this year will be higher than usual, which will end up favouring the Labor relative to the usual effects.
And there are some odd effects when you look across the Flynn votes. For instance, in 2007, the pre-polls went 55% to Labor… but in 2010, they went 56% to Coalition, and even more in 2013. Absent votes also saw a huge flip in behaviours. I expect a different behaviour at this election – not to the point that it doesn’t shift (I’d expect Flynn to be quite close), but less than the 1.53% current margin. I’m going with a 1.4% shift, leaving a 0.13% margin. So I’d still call Flynn a Labor hold.
And I really don’t see Hindmarsh shifting much differently this time around. The last time Labor won it off Liberals was in 2004 (same Labor candidate, funnily enough), Labor had a margin of 0.35% on ordinary votes, and ended up with a 0.06% margin – a shift of 0.29%. The current margin on ordinary votes is 0.40%. Incumbency is unlikely to be enough.
so glen you are pretty sure of hung parliament?
I wouldn’t guarantee it, but I’m pretty sure, yes. I’d say Coalition on 73 or 74, depending on how Forde falls (it’s going to be the most marginal seat, it could go either way).
Of course, I don’t have access to the sophisticated algorithms, etc, that people like Antony Green or Kevin Bonham would, but I’m fairly confident with my analysis at this point.
I think you may be prematurely calling Capricornia and Flynn. Assuming around 9000 postal votes, Laundry needs to get around 62% of postals when she received 58% last time (and with a swing of 0.6% against her this time). It will be very close. Similarly in Flynn, assuming around 11,500 postals, O’Dowd needs to get around 68% of postals, which is the same percentage he got last time but has an 8% swing against him. This assumes that pre-polls, DVs and absentees broadly net out.
A few AEC updates in the last hr or so:
Hindmarsh has improved by 200 odd for the ALP, ahead by 645 now,
Chisolm Lib still ahead by 85,
Forde Lib still ahead by 157,
Herbert LNP pegged back around 200, now ALP ahead 900 according to Cassidy tweet (on that trend LNP will obviously hold)
Grey: Cassidy also tweeted “looking more likely a NXT gain” but not sure where he gets that info from?
Just to add a bit of balance to Yappo’s excellent summary.
Lab are ahead in the following electorates Capricornia (991), Cowan (959), Forde (138), Herbert (900) and Hindmarsh (645).
Libs are ahead in Chisholm (85), Dunkley (421), Gilmore (405), and Petrie (1134).
NXT are ahead in Grey (38).
Still like Saturday the Lib’s are going to take them all or have I got it wrong LOL!
Oops AEC now has Grey (1230) as Libs ahead.
Jasper .. I notice that the Whyalla booths are not included in the 2PP figures – overall, only about 20% of booths have a 2PP count, so it’s far from over
Update on Gilmore, Fiona Philips is closing the gap, lib lead is 321 as of tonight.
Ok dubopov. The count almost changed in front of my eyes LOL. So what do you think, can we make it?
Cassidy just tweeted:
“On probabilities now looks like LNP 73 ALP 72 Others 6. That’s giving labor all seats where they lead by 600+ and LNP the rest of close ones”
Seems too premature to me. I guess that he is giving Grey to NXT and Herbert to ALP but it’s way to early on both I would suggest.
I note that A Green is now calling Grey for the Libs…..
likely turnbull won’t make it to 76
if the tories win all doubtful seats there should be a royal commission into who filled out the postals and when .. would be an Australian jeb bush does Miami scandal
extra bit on grey .. I notice that labor got about 60% of 2PP in Whyalla booths in 2013
Im at LNP 73 ALP 67 with 5 undecided
50% of postals counted in Hindmarsh going to be very close.
Big postal numbers for the LNP in Longman on early that might cut lead to 500 votes.
Similar trends would deliver Forde easily, along with Herbert and Capricornia
Cowan remains an unknown till we see postals
Matt .. where did you see the longman postal count? AEC has nothing like that
On the AEC page for Longman
746 postals counted – 435 LNP (58%) 311 ALP (42%) (Net 124 votes)
which has cut the ALP lead to 1889.
Those formal votes came from 846 processed envelopes. Still 9196 outstanding.
Potential shshift on remainder = 124/846 * 9196 = 1347
New lead 542.
Still some 6000 votes in Absent. Provisional. Declaration
I certainly don’t think Wyatt can get back, but it could get an awful lot tighter.
But similar sized postal vote trends in Herbert, Capricornia would deliver those seats
I cant see NXT getting Grey.
On 22% of formal votes counted NXT have 59.7% of the preference flow.
This means they need about 75% of the remainder to catch (and thats before any postals etc)
Capricona, QLD
Clermont PPV added in Capricornia.
Has cut ALP lead by 111 votes.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-20499-46722.htm
Still no sign of postals
Flynn, QLD
Massive first bundles of postals for LNP
766 formal postals split 65/35 versus 49/51 in ordinaries delivering 234 net votes to LNP
Still 10238 postals to go.
If that trend continues that would deliver 3000 net votes to the LNP and put them ahead
Still way to early to conclude anything, but if that trend holds both Flynn and Longman are potentially in the In Doubt column,
Capricornia change quickly followed by finalisation of 2PP counts for the remaining booths which have taken ALP back out to 996
After the counting today it would seem only Herbert, Forde and possibly Gilmore remain in any serious doubt. No postal votes yet from the latter two, but my feeling is the LNP would be feeling better about them based on the other postals counted so far.
Leaving these three out, the tally now stands at 74-68-5, to the LNP.
The counting today has firmed up Hindmarsh for the ALP and moved Herbert from leaning ALP to 50/50.
Forget Flynn and Capricornia, both will be LNP holds based on the huge (and reliable) pastoral postal vote from the interior.
Ok, I have to admit Capricornia is still worth keeping an eye on…If dec votes flow as last time Landry will come out ahead by about 350. But she wasn’t the incumbent last time and the lack of a swing has shown she’s not just any incumbent.
Also, the increase in pre-polls should be reflected in the uncounted out of electorate pre-polls, and most will be from the Mackay PPVC and will favour her as they come from the rural areas outside the city (Mackay itself is in Dawson).
Will be very surprised if she goes down.
Peter – don’t jump the gun on reasoning. Flynn in particular is hard to judge. It was created for 2007, which means it has never had a federal election run during a school holiday. While the pastoral LNP postal vote will be high, we might also see a high absent/prepoll vote from younger families on holidays in other parts of the country, that might subdue the swing. Or not. It’s hard to predict.
What I can say is that some seats saw smaller non-ordinary vote bias (that is, the effect that non-ordinary votes have on the final 2PP) in 2004 than in other years. Forde is the example I’ve used, which saw 0.14% in 2010 and 2013, larger in 2007, but no bias in 2004.
If Flynn behaves like, say, the average of the three seats it took from in 2004, and follows the pattern from 2004, then it has Hinkler, which got a 0.65% bias to Nationals, Maranoa, which got a 1.66% bias to Nationals, and Capricornia, which got a 0.86% bias to Nationals. On this simplified basis, you’d expect Flynn to behave somewhere around a 1.06% bias to the LNP.
On current count, the margin in 1.3%
But it’s a hard one to call. I mean, in 2013, Hinkler saw a tiny bias in favour of Labor (0.02%), while Capricornia had 0.89% in favour of LNP (about the same as in 2004), and Maranoa 1.46% bias to LNP, which is smaller than seen in 2004 again. But Flynn itself shifted by 1.81%.
Which demonstrates just how hard it is to predict what Flynn will do. Probably best to simply wait and see.
Flynn is not hard to call at all. It will be an easy LNP retain. The Pastoral component in the postals has been very stable and predictable in the last 3 elections. Sure there are more postals this time, which might dilute the overall postal % to the LNP, but that won’t change the fact that those pastoral postals will still be included in the cohort.
I guess we shall soon see..
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