By-elections of the 44th Australian Parliament (2013-2016)

[Vosem]

The High Court has voided the WA Senate results and ordered a fresh election for all six seats

Obviously the results are unknowable, especially before the above-the-line preferences have been made public, but in which direction will first-preference votes probably go for the big players (Lib, ALP, Green, PUP, Nat)? Up or down?

[Vosem]

We've had the first attempt at a poll for the WA Senate vote...

The results are as expected, massively increased support for the usual suspects, collapses in the smaller parties... keep in mind the quota for a seat is 16.7%

That would be the quota if there were five seats up for election, but since there are six seats the quota is in fact 14.3% -- under the numbers you posted 3 LNP, 2 ALP, 1 Green would almost be assured.

[Vosem]

We've had the first attempt at a poll for the WA Senate vote...

The results are as expected, massively increased support for the usual suspects, collapses in the smaller parties... keep in mind the quota for a seat is 16.7%

That would be the quota if there were five seats up for election, but since there are six seats the quota is in fact 16.7% -- under the numbers you posted 3 LNP, 2 ALP, 1 Green would almost be assured.

Surely you meant than the quota is 1/7 (6 seats), so 14.3%?

Yes -- meant to correct him and just repeated his mistake

[Vosem]

Putting the current ABC projections (based on 8.9% counted) of Lib 34.4, Lab 19.7, Green 18.1, Palmer 11.6, Nat 3.3, Lib Dem 1.7 (I didn't adjust shares for parties below that) into the Senate calculator gave Lib 3 Lab 1 Green 1 Palmer 1, with the last seat being quite close between the third Liberal and second Labor candidates.

After the election took place, I fed the real election results into Green's Senate Calculator but gave the Sports Party a 0, and had the Calculator adjust the other numbers so it would add up to 100%, and came up with that -- so this is what would've happened had there been a threshold in the first election; seems appropriate for what is more of a revote, not a by-election. (This is assuming these results hold, of course, which is by no means certain). Rather ironic considering how much shift there was in the top-line numbers. (For the curious, I did the same experiment in Victoria, setting AMEP at 0 and adjusting everything else; in that case the final Senate seat went to the third Liberal).

[Vosem]

Is anyone else deeply disappointed that the preferences lottery didn't elect some raving weirdo crossbencher in a strange single issue party? I hope the Australian Sports Party enjoyed their admittedly brief national spotlight.

Apparently under early figures it appeared the Voluntary Euthanasia party had a fair chance of grabbing a seat, but then the chance disappeared. HEMP got up to 7% through their preferences, but they didn't have a chance of winning the way the numbers were set up, since the Libs and the ALP were both past 10% when HEMP was eliminated.