The Tally Room

Australian constitutional referendums aren't fought at the seat level. They aren't really fought at the national level. It's actually a contest in six states. A referendum requires a majority in four out of six states to pass. It's also necessary to achieve a national majority,...

Ben is joined today by Peter Brent to wrap up the referendum campaign. We discuss the state of the polls, the relative position of the states, whether the low Yes vote can really be blamed on the state of the campaign or by the...

When the results start flowing in on Saturday night, it will be our first experience of a federal referendum night in 24 years. For this post, I wanted to discuss some ideas of what to expect on the night, and how to assess the...

The last constitutional referendums in this country were held in 1999, on adding a preamble to the constitution and changing Australia to be a republic. The latter referendum may have some insights about what we could expect on Saturday, so I thought I would...

Ben is joined by James Mulrennan from The Overhang. We preview next weekend's New Zealand national election, touching on the electoral system, the state of the parties and the polls, and the potential shape of the next government. I have prepared an interactive map showing...

For today's post, I wanted to explore how much referendum results vary geographically - how much variety there is by seat and by state. There's been quite a bit of variety in how tightly-clustered the states have been over time, although it's very clear that...

One of the key factors to consider when looking at the history of Australia's constitutional referendums is which government submitted the redistribution proposal. Labor and their Coalition opponents (and their predecessors) have held differing attitudes to the constitution, all the way back to the...

Referendum results are made up of building blocks of states - four states are required to pass a referendum. While a successful referendum also requires a majority nationwide, that has never been the deciding factor. It's always been about the four states. In this post...

One of the most interesting elements of a constitutional referendum in Australia is that there are two requirements for the referendum to be carried: it needs a majority of votes nationally, but it also needs a majority in a majority of states. Since there have...

Over the next two weeks I'll be writing a few blog posts based on the referendum results data in my data repository - looking at the history of referendums throughout the 20th century. The Voice referendum will be the first constitutional referendum held since 1999...