This blog post is an update to two blog posts I wrote in 2022, looking at the rate of counting progress on election night and how the primary vote for Labor, the Coalition and the Greens shifts over the course of the night.
As increasing numbers of Australians have chosen to vote early, we have now reached a point where the country is split roughly into two halves – one half voting before election day, through pre-poll voting, postal voting and remote booths, and the other half casting their vote on the day.
Rates of early voting have been increasing for a long time, but reached a record high level of 2022, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I most recently summarised these statistics at a federal level in this blog post.
Australia’s states often swing in different ways, with trends noticeable at the state level rather than just at the state or regional level. For this reason, I usually choose to measure 2PP results against the state result, rather than the national result.
At the 2010 federal election, the Coalition gained swings in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, but Labor actually gained ground in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Ben is joined by Jill Sheppard and Emily Foley to discuss the long-term trend of the major parties losing primary votes: what is causing the trend, how it might play out in 2025 and whether they can do anything to reverse the trend. The seat of the week is Bruce in south-eastern Melbourne.
In yesterday’s blog post I analysed the historical evidence for sophomore surge having an impact in Australian federal elections, dating back to 1998.
“Sophomore surge” refers to the phenomenon of a first-term MP performing relatively better than other candidates for their party, doubly so if they defeated a former MP from another party at the previous election.
I have referenced the concept of “personal vote” and “sophomore surge” quite a few times during this campaign, and in the past, but I thought it would be useful to actually collect data and analyse how much of an effect we can detect from the swings data.
Over five weeks after the state election was held, the WA Electoral Commission has finally concluded the counting procedure for the WA Legislative Council, with the button pushed yesterday afternoon. This resulted in the full distribution of preferences, electing the 37 members for the chamber.
Ben is joined by Duncan McDonnell from Griffith University to discuss the close of rolls and nominations and the role of Gen Z voters in the election. The seat of the week is Lingiari in the Northern Territory, and we also talk about Indigenous enrolment and parliamentary representation.
Australia has used preferential voting for over one hundred years, and in that time the party system has changed quite a bit. Since the 1950s, there has been an increasing trend of minor parties picking up votes, but until recently these votes were not enough to actually win many seats. So their main contribution, in the House of Representatives at least, was in having their votes flow as preferences to one of the major parties.