Greens kick off Senate preselection

In the last few days, the Greens in Australia's two largest states have closed nominations for their Senate preselections. In both NSW and Victoria, the process will be decided by a ballot of all members, although processes may vary in some ways. The Victorian...

Website update

I haven't yet managed to install the proper Wiki for this site. I started it over the long weekend but hopefully I can get it working over the next week. In the meantime I have suspended open user registration for this site, as I...

Should we have more federal MPs?

While it's not the biggest electoral reform issue on the table (I would consider introducing proportional representation to the House of Representatives much more significant), I've been thinking for a while that there is a strong argument for increasing the number of Members of...

New electoral maps – Ireland

There is no election scheduled in the Republic of Ireland for the next three years, but there is a good chance that the economic crisis may force an early election, and I have completed a Google Earth electoral map of constituencies in the Dail...

Indonesia goes to the polls

It's hard to find solid information, but a number of polling companies have produced exit polls, and according to the Jakarta Post's coverage of the exit polls, they all put Yudohoyono's party leading with about 20%, with Megawati's IDP-S coming second with around 15%...

A new Morgan senate poll

Roy Morgan polling has come out with a new poll measuring voting intention for the Senate, broken down according to each state and the ACT. The poll predicts 34-35 ALP senators, 30-31 Coalition senators, 8-10 Greens and 2 Xenophon. It was conducted during March for...

Time itself is pro-gay marriage

In the aftermath of the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage is protected under the state's constitution, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com has laid out how public opinion in the US is shifting steadily towards gay marriage, and he makes predictions about when each...

World election news – April 7

We've got a bunch of global elections taking place over the next two months. I have posted an electoral calendar in the sidebar. These include elections in South Africa, India and Iceland, a parliamentary election in Indonesia, a referendum on Daylight Saving in Western...

Testing out the election-wiki

I have installed the Wordpress Wiki plugin and set up a page that should be editable for all registered users. If you go to the bottom of the right-hand column and register, you should be able to edit the the "test wiki" page. So what can...

McGinty resigns: Fremantle by-election is on

Thanks to Simon Copland in comments who has pointed out to us that former WA Attorney-General Jim McGinty has resigned as Member for Fremantle, triggering a by-election with the daylight savings referendum on May 16: Mr McGinty’s decision, which follows months of speculation about his...