The Tally Room

Since the expanded City of Sydney was created in 1948, every single state government has tinkered with the City of Sydney's structure and boundaries to advantage their allies in local council elections. Today's announcement by the state Liberal government that they plan to radically expand business voting...

Nominations were announced yesterday for the by-election in the Queensland state seat of Stafford. Only four candidates nominated, representing Labor, Liberal National, Greens and Family First: Bob Anderson (Liberal National) Sally-Anne Vincent (Family First) Anne Boccabella (Greens) Anthony Lynham (Labor) This is in contrast to the Redcliffe by-election in February, when nine candidates stood...

New Zealand goes to the polls on 20 September for their general election. The National-led centre-right government will be running for a third term at the election. For the first time, I am putting together a seat-by-seat guide to the New Zealand election, in a similar...

In 2015, New South Wales and Western Australia will both undergo redistributions to redraw federal electoral boundaries due to New South Wales losing its 48th seat and Western Australia gaining its 16th seat. Yesterday I looked at enrolment numbers in NSW seats, and how...

Every three years, approximately one year after the federal election, Australia's population is assessed, and each state and territory is given a set number of seats to be filled in the next Parliament, based on population. When the number of seats allocated to a...

Less than six months from the next scheduled Victorian state election, the Victorian coalition government is gripped by political instability after ex-Liberal independent Geoff Shaw declared that he will vote for a no-confidence motion in the Napthine Liberal-National government. Geoff Shaw is facing a vote...

Last Friday, embattled former LNP minister Chris Davis resigned his seat of Stafford in the Queensland state parliament. Davis had served as Assistant Minister for Health for the last two years, but had come into conflict with the Premier and senior ministers over a number...

I'm well on my way to preparing the maps of New Zealand's electorates for the guide to the September election - yesterday I finished half of the general electorates (32 out of 64, plus 7 Maori seats). The most interesting electorate I've worked on is the seat...

The federal Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters released its interim report yesterday, which covered recommendations for how to reform the Senate voting system. The Senate voting system has come under criticism for the system of group voting tickets producing bizarre results and creating very close races, and...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to follow results last night for the two Tasmanian Legislative Council seats that went to the polls yesterday. Tasmania's upper house never faces the polls all at once - its fifteen seats go to the polls over a six year...