Comments on: Tasmanian council results

By: Monique Huyskens

Monique Huyskens — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:20:58 +0000

Just following up, belatedly, on the Launceston election. After missing out by 19 votes I did request a re-count, as suggested, but it was refused on the grounds that the sorting through preferences provides for accuracy and the margin wasn’t close enough. There was a possibility, which I didn’t pursue, of appealing to the Electoral Commissioner. Regarding the allowances, for aldermen on the LCC the allowance is $27k, DM, about $45k, and I’m not sure for mayoral, maybe $60-70k.

So for both Launceston (myself) and Hobart (Corey Peterson, Greens candidates ran 7th. (But the small consolation is that we are technically not excluded, just not elected (!), so should there be any resignation in the period up to 6 months prior to the next election (ie. the next 18 months), we will fill that position up to the next election…

Cheers
Monique

By: Nick C

Nick C — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:50:50 +0000

Thanks
At least it’s a little fairer than NSW, it costs about $5,000 if I recall, though I think you get it back if it reverses the result.

I was reacting to Ben’s examples because I knew Ashfield has very small wards. I’ve looked those up now – the margin in Ashfield-North was 35 votes out of about 5,000 (quite unlucky because the surplus votes from the Green-aligned independent mostly exhausted). Waverley was actually a wider margin, but still, if it wasn’t for votes exhausting there’d probably be a fair few more seats won. The other example to add to Ben’s list was Tweed, where the second seat was missed out on by 48 votes, out of 43,000.

And in answer to my question, there was a recount in Manly, which resulted in a 6 vote margin, closer than the original count.

By: Stephen L

Stephen L — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:35:45 +0000

Hi Nick, I wasn’t offended or thinking you were being critical, I’m just dumbfounded how unlucky we’ve been. You don’t have to pay for recounts, but the commission often refuses them and you have to take a court case if you want them. Some of the ones refused last time seemed to me a bit much – sure they weren’t likely to change, but it was hardly out of the realm of possibility. They did recount the two were we originally lost by 1 vote, one of which confirmed the result, the other had us end up losing by about a dozen.

By: Nick C

Nick C — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:07:37 +0000

No worries Stephen, I didn’t mean to be critical. That’s terrible luck.

So what’s the situation with recounts in Vic? Do candidates have to pay, or are there provisions to request one without having to pay under certain circumstances?

By: Stephen L

Stephen L — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:29:52 +0000

Sure Nick, but in 2008 the Greens had seven losses whose (from memory) *combined* margin was larger than our smallest winning margin – one by 1 vote. This wasn’t exceptional, we’ve had many many close losses over the years, and only ever had two close wins, plus Colleen’s state win of course.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:33:57 +0000

I have a final wrap on the HCC count up at

http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/article/council-haigh-retains-but-freeman-gone/

In short, the Greens missed out on getting two by just 115 votes and the main reason for that was that preference flows from the minor Greens candidates to the #2 candidate were not as strong as last time. In said article I discuss a few possible reasons why this was so.

By: Nick C

Nick C — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:46:42 +0000

And in NSW you have to pay if you want a recount. Were there recounts in any of those?

Of course, tight margins in council elections are to be expected given the smaller numbers of voters.

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:20:56 +0000

We’ve lost plenty of close races in NSW too. We lost out on a second Manly seat by 2 votes, and in Waverley, Blue Mountains and Ashfield we missed out on winning in the fourth ward by a small number of votes.

By: Stephen L

Stephen L — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:46:51 +0000

PS, I see that the Victorian Green’s tendency to lose elections by really tight margins has now jumped Bass Straight.

By: Stephen L

Stephen L — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:44:54 +0000

Monique lost by 19 votes. Out of 23,000 that’s less than 0.1%. I hope she’ll ask for a recount. Margins like that don’t get overturned often, but it does happen. I imagine the RO’s pretty sick of it though, after the 3 vote margin for Mayor.