Tasmanian state election - 3rd March 2018

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Cassy O'Connor the Greens is just entering the tally room to give her concession speech.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The dark coloured seats are called for a candidate, while the light coloured seats have been called for a party, but haven't been called for a specific candidate and the white seats are uncalled.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Appparantly Will Hodgman should arrive at the Tally Room in ten minutes to give his victory speech.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Hodgman's speaking.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Finally Antony's called the fifth seat in Lyons for Labor

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Well this is the state of play at the end of the night, we probably won't know any more until friday.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

On the final three seats I'd say Labor is definitely favoured in Braddon, meanwhile it'll go down to the wire between Labor and the Greens in Bass and the Liberals and the Greens in Franklin.

[DavidB.]

Wow, great news!

[Lord Halifax]

I haven't paid much attention to this in the last three weeks. Why did Labor and the Greens end up losing?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I haven't paid much attention to this in the last three weeks. Why did Labor and the Greens end up losing?

Tassies do NOT like minority government, as they always end badly in Tasmania. This time round a great many swing voters decided that only the Liberals could win majority government. Labor lost a good many voters because it was, quite rightly, perceived that only Hodgman could win a majority, while Labor would have to do great amount of horse-trading with the Greens.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

If you're hoping/expecting the final count soon... You don't know Australian politics (it took a week and a half last federal election to figure out that the Libs had a majority). Postal votes can be returned until the 13th. That's right, the postal votes only have to be received by the Electoral Commission two and a half weeks after Election Day. We probably won't get the final count (i.e. who won the fifth seats in Bass and Franklin) until next Friday (17th). That's right, we won't know the winner of 8% of the seats for nigh-on 3 weeks
We'll know the final results of the ITALIAN election before then. The ITALIAN ELECTION.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If you're hoping/expecting the final count soon... You don't know Australian politics (it took a week and a half last federal election to figure out that the Libs had a majority). Postal votes can be returned until the 13th. That's right, the postal votes only have to be received by the Electoral Commission two and a half weeks after Election Day. We probably won't get the final count (i.e. who won the fifth seats in Bass and Franklin) until next Friday (17th). That's right, we won't know the winner of 8% of the seats for nigh-on 3 weeks
We'll know the final results of the ITALIAN election before then. The ITALIAN ELECTION.

Wow, Australia, not only is your wildlife out to kill us, but your election counting is also designed to make us die of anticipation!

[AustralianSwingVoter]

We've got some more numbers! The electoral commission has released the Out of Division (on the day) votes (if you cast your vote outside your electorate, rather than it being counted where you voted, all the out-of-divisions are bundled up and taken to the central counting centre for each respective division. Then and only then, 5 days after the votes were cast are the votes finally counted.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

If you're hoping/expecting the final count soon... You don't know Australian politics (it took a week and a half last federal election to figure out that the Libs had a majority). Postal votes can be returned until the 13th. That's right, the postal votes only have to be received by the Electoral Commission two and a half weeks after Election Day. We probably won't get the final count (i.e. who won the fifth seats in Bass and Franklin) until next Friday (17th). That's right, we won't know the winner of 8% of the seats for nigh-on 3 weeks
We'll know the final results of the ITALIAN election before then. The ITALIAN ELECTION.

Wow, Australia, not only is your wildlife out to kill us, but your election counting is also designed to make us die of anticipation!

There's a thin line between anticipation and boredom, a line most thin indeed.
Oh and also not all of our animals want to kill you (Why would a Quokka want to harm anyone, they are always smiling), just almost all. There are, if you look close enough, a few animals which don't want to kill, a few.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

We'll get some more votes on Friday, and on Tuesday we'll get the postal votes in (because for your postal vote to be valid it must be received by the Electoral Commission no more than 10 days after polling day.)
Begining on Tuesday we'll get the first distribution of preferences figures, and like each previous election the TEC will update the sheets with the latest preference counts in real time.
By Friday next we'll certainly have the full and final preference counts.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Final first preferences have been released for all 5 electorates, with the final turnout being 92.4%
All the seats have finished their counting for today.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I'm going to go through the members elected today, but firstly I'll just add the small print:
Members are listed in order of election and members with MP after them denote those who are incumbents.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

So firstly, in Bass 3 members elected on Tuesday:
Peter Gutwein MP
Michael Ferguson MP
Michelle O'Byrne MP

[AustralianSwingVoter]

And onto Braddon:
Jeremy Rockliff MP
Adam Brooks MP

[AustralianSwingVoter]

And then Denison:
Scott Bacon MP
Elise Archer MP

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Penultimately Franklin:
Will Hodgman MP
Jacquie Petrusma MP

[AustralianSwingVoter]

And finally Lyons:
Rebecca White MP

[AustralianSwingVoter]

So the current official seat count is:
7 Liberal
3 Labor

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The first thing which will happen tomorrow will be David O'Byrne, the lead Labor candidate in Franklin, will be elected. After the last count conducted tonight the last Labor candidate Kathryn Barnsley was eliminated, and with O'Byrne only needing 178 out of her 2040 votes he'll easily reach quota on the 15/16/17th count (in Australian STV when candidates are eliminated their votes are distributed over multiple counts based on where the votes came from, so you firstly distribute the votes they got on preferences individually in order of first preferences (you count all the votes from Candidate A, then all the votes from Candidate B, et cetera) and after distributing all the preferences votes one by one based on their first preference then you distribute the candidates first preference votes. So yeah, it takes a lot of time and about quintuple more counts than necessary)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

After that tomorrow we'll definitely see Sarah Courtney elected as the third Liberal in Bass, as she's currently only 446 behind quota.