Blogging Senate forecasts and results in the WA Senate re-election until officially declared.

Twitter: @AU_Truth_Seeker


Wednesday 2 October 2013

Button Press Preview

Tomorrow the AEC will press the button on WA and NSW. Queensland is behind by an unknown period of time (at least during daylight savings we know it's just one hour...)

Mini-preview below... Updates in a new post tomorrow...


WA:
The declaration is due for 5pm (AEST), with the button press to occur prior to this.

(Does anyone know what time the button press is occurring? A comment or email would be great if you do).

My final analysis shows the following margins:
- Shooters leading Christians by 428 votes  assuming all BTL votes flow as ATL votes. As outlined previously, this is unrealistic and no heed should be taken of this number
- Christians leading Shooters by 22 votes on "locked in" or guaranteed ticket votes + 80% of Party-share votes. This implies that GRN and SPORT will be elected. BUT...
- Shooters leading Christians by 54 votes after applying a set of assumptions regarding where these votes will flow (see my previous post for details on this). This implies ALP and PUP will be elected.

Assessment: 
This is ridiculously close. With 9000 BTL votes, my best guess is a 54 vote lead. Is this significantly different to zero? No.
A further complication is the final ALP v GRN elimination which may flow either way depending on order of vote segmentation, or how the votes from the elected LIB and PUP/SPORT candidates flow.
If I had to punt, I'd say WA would return 3 LIB, 2 ALP, 1 PUP

NSW:
Declaration 3:30pm. Button press at some stage prior, assumedly!

Given only one critical elimination is within 700 votes (and that is 343), I see next to zero likelihood of a change to the likely outcome in NSW. Earlier modelling suggested the Democrats or the Shooters would be an outside chance, and although the Shooters remain the most likely contender to unseat the 3rd Liberal candidate, Arthur Sinodinos, I highly doubt this will occur.

Assessment:
3 LNP, 2 ALP, 1 LDP


22 comments:

  1. AEC tweeted various times in replies to various people stuff like "I'm told that the distribution of prefs scheduled for 11am (WST) tomorrow." These tweets were sent Tuesday afternoon. 11 am WST = 1 pm AEST. Of course the chances of a recount for WA are high so it is not just the result but the distribution we'll be hanging out for.

    Ben Raue has said NSW button press is 9:30 am.

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  2. Guys, what's behind the term "button press"?

    Is it just the electoral commission hitting send on their results, or is there a more interesting etymology?

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    Replies
    1. No, it's hitting 'Calculate' on the software that determines the results once all the votes — above and below the line — have been entered and validated.

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    2. Thanks.

      I guess the actual number crunch doesn't take long, if there's only a few million votes per state.

      Reckon we should be looking at some sort of automated system rather than pencil and paper in the booths, given it's taken 3 and a half weeks to get to this "button press" stage.

      Mind you, it might reduce the psephologist blogging window.

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  3. The AEC just tweeted that the NSW & Qld preference distribution will take place at 9:30am (presumably AEST although they didn't specify) and the WA preference distribution is at 11am WST / 1pm AEST.

    Results to be tweeted around half an hour after the distribution in each case.

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  4. AEC has tweeted the results. No Surprises in NSW or QLD.

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  5. Louise Pratt won the final senate spot in WA.

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  6. Yes the button press has returned Pratt and Wang for the final seats in WA but this is one where I would like to see the full distribution before being certain it is dusted.

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    Replies
    1. Awaiting confirmation... But can assume it's right. Can't wait to get my fingers on the DoP

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  7. 14 votes between Christians and Shooters at critical intersection.

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    Replies
    1. What could be grounds for a recount?

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    2. Would have thought they would have to recount it....but it is such a massive task.....1.4m votes to recount.....

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  8. This could get really messy. Can anyone imagine Clive backing down and then you have Alp and Greens with much at stake....any recount is likely to end in court with argument over the informals and provisionals..the courts generally adopt a looser criteria I.e more votes are included that weren't before....this will probably favour the shooters on the evidence I have seen from the provisionals.........

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  9. How about that. Clive Palmer wins his own seat by 7 votes (now being recounted) and one of his mates also gets in by a narrow margin. Expect some heavily scrutineered recounting!

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  10. Agree with most of you - I can't see how they can't do a full recount. It's so easy to lose a bundle of 50 or 100 votes somewhere along the way.

    I'm slightly nervous about the 14 votes thing - there's no Distribution of preferences and I can't find any "evidence" of this. It seems the first leaking of this to the world was via a comment here. Can anyone find me a source document?

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  11. So.. WA at the critical AUC / ASP split was separated by 14 votes.

    Recount anyone?

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    Replies
    1. No automatic entitlement to a recount in the senate because of a close result.

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  12. Age article quotes Senator Ludlam confirming the Greens have requested a recount.

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    Replies
    1. My understanding is SPORT and GRN have both requested recount

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  13. Greens and Sport fighting Palmer and ALP to ensure the Christian vote is as high as possible. This will be fun.

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