The Tally Room

With the writs being issued yesterday, we have the final list of political parties registered for the election. Fifty-four autonomous parties have been registered - which is a significant record, compared to a previous record of 40 in 1998, and only 25 parties running in...

After yesterday's election call we saw two new national polls emerge from Newspoll and Reachtel. Both had the Coalition on 52% two-party-preferred and Labor on 48%, which would translate into a slim victory for the Coalition. It certainly indicates a close race. The poll is...

Kevin Rudd is on his way to the Governor-General's residence in Canberra where he is expected to call the election. The election is expected to be called for September 7, but a six-week campaign could theoretically be called for September 14. Please feel free to comment...

The volume of comments has exploded on this blog in recent times. In July over 1000 comments were posted - this is only the second time I've received more than 1000 legitimate comments in a month. With this I have experienced more occasions where I've...

There has been a fair amount of comments on individual seat profiles that deal more generally with the federal election generally rather than that specific electorate. If you are commenting on an individual seat or on one particular region please continue, but general discussion about...

There hasn't been much in the way of updates to the blog since finishing the guide at the beginning of June. I've been regularly updating lists of candidates, and I've also been working on a few Google Earth electoral map layers, including those covering New...

Yesterday I went through and added a lot more candidates to the electorate profiles, and the same candidates were added to the online candidates spreadsheet. The total number for the House of Representatives is now up to 729. The largest surge was thanks to an increase...

Speculation is intensifying about the possibility of an August election being called in the next week or two. Next Monday is the deadline to call an election for August 24, and a week later will be the deadline for August 31. The ALP's caucus will be...

While the rest of the country has been focusing on federal politics, two weeks ago the Queensland Attorney-General, Jarrod Bleijie, announced plans for a number of changes to Queensland's election laws. The package includes some innocuous proposals to improve electoral processes, but also a number...

Following on from the completion of the NSW draft boundaries map a fortnight ago, I have now finished the Google Earth maps of the new draft boundaries for the Victorian state redistribution. Electoral maps have been posted for the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council....