Australian Election Results Thread

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Of course, all seats are presently "in doubt" no results are in yet... that should happen in about 15 mins.


Also we'll get dribs and drabs. No solid numbers until about 7:30-8pm EST.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Of course, all seats are presently "in doubt" no results are in yet... that should happen in about 15 mins.

I kid, I kid.

I know, I know.

Callare is a non-issue. It was held by a very popular local independent, who retired due to ill health and passed away. This seat was held by the Nationals before, and will be held by them after tonight.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

There's no ticker because there are no results yet.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

These results are all over the place.

10% in Hume... ? WTF!?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yep, Stanley Bruce in 1929.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Remember we have hand counting... so we go by swings and booth analysis to give a prediction of what "may happen based on present information".

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The Bennelong swing is getting smaller.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The present ACT Senate numbers have Liberal Gary Humphries surviving - despite a combined 63% Labor/Green vote.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Not a chance.

Howard is one the key reasons why they lost. Whatever he might be, he is a decent man - he knows what the consequences of this result is, he knows what he has to do.

It's customary for the Leader of the losing party to resign - especially given what his plans were.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It would take something MASSIVE for a true blue-ribbon Liberal seat to fall to Labor - Wentworth's numbers, as Al points out were based on Peter King's candidacy in 2004. I would imagine that in reality his margin was closer 6-8%. Even facing that, Labor's candidate had EVERYTHING going for him (Labor surge, Environmental concerns, being Jewish) but the campaign was run appallingly.


Bennelong is very close... we won't know for a couple of days.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Fran Bailey - a Liberal minister who seems to have just BARELY survived in her VIC sea of McEwen hit the nail on the head. When asked about the lessons of this election she said this "people think the economy is working well for them... but they wanted more".

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

One interestingly thing I noticed: when browsing the AEC (and later the ABC) I noticed the voter turnouts - they were mostly all in the 70% range; good-ish for a modern democracy but hey what happened to compulsory voting here. Or is there some explaination here that I need?

That's not actual turnout - it's proportion of the vote counted. A lot of postal and pre-poll votes are yet to be counted. Add those to the votes from yesterday that also were not counted.. there you have a much higher number.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

...and Pyne is ahead 50.5/49.5

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

They've already resumed.

The swing in Bennelong has increased to almost 6%

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It's really unexpected.

My money is on Turnbull/Hockey - stick it to the right.

Is it me or do some of these so-called 'Liberals' actually verge on being psychotically right-wing? A right nutjob seems to have just been elected in Mitchell, NSW

Dave

Ah yes, Mr Hawke... Interesting character, let's just say he's taken some risks in the past and the skeletons in his closet have some flesh on them.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I actually like Turnbull.

He's the best chance to wrestle the party away from the extreme right-wing.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The aboriginal vote is largely Labor, but there was a swing to the Libs in the seat of Lingiari. This is largely to do with the support of the isolated communities of the "intervention".

One thing to note, while the sitting members are getting 60/40 - 70/30 splits on the pre-poll and postal votes. The only incument seat where it's close is.... Bennelong, where the split is in favour of Howard 51/49.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Formal votes are votes that have been correctly cast - all boxes numbered correctly - Informal votes are those that have been cast incorrectly and will not be counted.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

At present, Peter Dutton is ahead in Dickson by 12 votes, Laming is ahead in Bowman by 29 votes.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

When will John Howard's seat be done?

There hasn't been an update of the count since 7pm last night.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

The green vote in Bennelong was due to the candidate Andrew Wilke - he was a former intelligence official who revealed that he knew the intelligence surrounding the Iraq War was faulty, and there was political pressure both internal and external.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

It's more symbolic.

Neither Labor nor the Greens had a chance of winning Bennelong in 2004, but when your seat is competitive - then people will generally make a decision between the big two.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Yeah - the AEC said Friday afternoon for the House.

I just noticed the pre-poll votes in Bennelong favoured Howard by a grand total of 9 votes (TPP). The swing remains 5.7%

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

No.

But in practice it must be done before Parliament resumes next year. Probably sometime in late January/early February.

Rudd's been sworn in - he's officially the 26th Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia. So the voting is just to get everything in order.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

No, hand counting.

I actually can't understand why it's taking nearly 2 weeks to count these things, but a few things do come to mind
 
* The AEC employs a certain number of counters for a certain number of days, I would say they're down to absolute BARE minimum.
* Party scrutineers must be there, so the count is not continuous, the ballots arrive at a certain point, but they must wait until all scrutineers can arrive, since they volunteer.

So it's a combination of AEC staff, scrutineers and lengthy ballot arrival times. Australia is a long way from most places people.