The Australian Electoral Commission has now started publishing three-candidate-preferred counts for some electorates where the final two are not clear. They have published seat-level totals for a series of seats at this page, but these seem to be not quite as advanced as the numbers I’ve seen.
A number of election analysts have given the AEC feedback that, in order to make this data useful, we needed to know which polling places had been included in the count. This information would allow us to compare the primary votes for the booths included in the 3CP to the rest of the seat and thus adjust those raw 3CPs to a projected 3CP. They have now provided that extra data to myself, and I believe they are working on adding it to the website. Unfortunately this is not a standard part of their election procedure so it doesn’t have a neat location in their results reporting system.
For this post I have picked five seats that are close, four of which have not yet been called. I’ve also examined Richmond because the AEC figure implied that the Greens could win. As I address, I don’t think that will happen.
Flinders
This is one of those seats where Labor will definitely lose to the Liberal Party if they make the 2CP, but a Liberal-independent contest could be close.
The AEC’s raw 3CP count has Labor on 26.16% just ahead of independent Ben Smith on 26.14%. The booths counted in the 3CP are substantially better for the Liberal candidate than the remaining booths – a 45.3% primary compared to 39.5% primary, and they are particularly worse for the independent (and slightly worse for Labor) compared to the remainder.
This looks likely to end up as a Liberal vs Independent race, with Smith needing over three quarters of Labor preferences from the 3CP to win.
Candidate
Party
Raw 3CP
Projected
McKenzie
LIB
47.70%
43.66%
Smith
IND
28.04%
29.46%
Race
ALP
26.16%
26.87%
Forrest
Much like Flinders, this race is only competitive if the independent makes the top two.
The sample so far is biased towards the Liberals and away from the independent Chapman, with Labor about fair. This produces a projected 3CP where Chapman narrowly falls short of Dowding. This is far from enough to call the race.
Candidate
Party
Raw 3CP
Projected
Small
LIB
44.47%
43.73%
Dowding
ALP
28.04%
28.23%
Chapman
IND
27.13%
28.04%
Monash
Monash is interesting because Deb Leonard has a decent lead over Labor’s Tully Fletcher on the raw 3CP but when you adjust for the bias she falls back into third. But not by much, so this isn’t definitive.
Candidate
Party
Raw 3CP
Projected
Aldred
LIB
44.16%
44.10%
Fletcher
ALP
27.29%
28.07%
Leonard
IND
28.55%
27.82%
Ryan
Rebecca Hack of the ALP has a lead on the sitting Greens MP on the raw 3CP, but the sample of booths so far is substantially more favourable to Labor than the Greens. Once you adjust for that, Watson-Brown is fairly clear. I’m not ready to call this but I could imagine once more votes are counted we may be.
Candidate
Party
Raw 3CP
Projected
Forrest
LNP
40.80%
40.73%
Watson-Brown
GRN
29.47%
30.23%
Hack
ALP
29.73%
29.04%
Richmond
I’ve only analysed Richmond because the numbers on the AEC site actually showed Nolan beating Elliot, which would mean she would win the seat. The raw 3CP figures I’ve now been shown are slightly more advanced and actually show Nolan in third. She is likely to narrow that gap but still clearly lose.
Indeed if you compare these numbers to the 3CP numbers from 2022 in my election guide, the gap between Labor and the Greens is likely to be wider.
Candidate
Party
Raw 3CP
Projected
Hone
NAT
36.70%
35.89%
Elliot
ALP
34.23%
33.75%
Nolan
GRN
29.08%
30.35%
Other seats
The AEC has also given me data for the following seats:
- Blaxland
- Hunter
- Maranoa
- Mayo
- Watson
I’ve also heard that they are conducting a 3CP count in Grey. None of these seats seem particularly interesting, but if you disagree let me know!