NSW 2015 – Legislative Council count finalised

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Earlier today the NSW Electoral Commission “pushed the button” for the Legislative Council election, and approximately half an hour we had a result in the Legislative Council.

As expected, the Coalition won nine seats, Labor won seven, the Greens won two and the Christian Democratic Party and the Shooters and Fishers each won one seat. But the last seat was not clear before the button was pushed, and ultimately the Animal Justice Party’s Mark Pearson, ahead of No Land Tax’s Peter Jones and Liberal Hollie Hughes.

At the beginning of the count, on primary votes, No Land Tax led Animal Justice by 5235 votes, and Animal Justice led the Liberal candidate by 3212 votes (adding up all Coalition votes and subtracting nine quotas for the first nine elected).

The following graph shows what happened in the last ten counts. The graph does not include Labor, the CDP or the Shooters, who were polling higher but still below quota.

In both the graph and the table below, I show the primary vote for each group at the beginning of the count (excluding full quotas for Labor, Coalition and Greens), and then the final ten counts at the end of the distribution of preferences as the key candidates were excluded and distributed preferences.

By count 374, there was only one candidate remaining in the count for each group. For space reasons, I haven’t included counts 374-380, in which the lead candidates for the five independent groups with above-the-line boxes were excluded, as well as the lead candidate for Socialist Alliance.

This first table shows the No Land Tax lead over Animal Justice, and the AJP lead over the Liberal, through the key counts.

Group 1 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390
NLT-AJP 5235 4220 4034 3918 3725 3640 3074 3092 2004 -2883 -3177
AJP-LIB 3212 3627 3111 2762 2361 2270 3334 3730 3674 7895

By count 381, No Land Tax’s lead had already narrowed by 1000 votes to 4220. This lead steadily declined, with Animal Justice narrowing the gap by 580 votes on Cyclist, Democrats, Motorists and Fishing Party preferences.

Throughout these rounds, the Liberal also narrowed Animal Justice’s lead, from 3627 to 2270. Also during this process the Greens did well on preferences, overtaking Voluntary Euthanasia on Democrats preferences, but stayed a long, long way behind the candidates in the race.

The No Land Tax lead dropped by 566 votes with the exclusion of Outdoor Recreation, and AJP also started extending their lead over the Liberal candidate. No Land Tax slightly increased their lead with the exclusion of No Parking Meters, but dropped by 1000 votes on the exclusion of Voluntary Euthanasia.

At the point at which the Greens (who had benefited from over 3500 Voluntary Euthanasia preferences) were excluded, Animal Justice took the lead. Of 48,815 Greens preferences, over 10,000 flowed to Labor’s seventh candidate, sitting under quota but certain of victory. Animal Justice gained 5631 Greens preferences, compared to less than 800 votes to No Land Tax, putting Animal Justice in the box seat to win.

With the Liberal candidate now 5000 votes behind No Land Tax, Hollie Hughes was excluded. Animal Justice gained 1700 Liberal preferences, and No Land Tax only gained 1406 preferences, giving Animal Justice a slim but certain 3177-vote margin.

So that’s how Animal Justice won this seat, with preferences playing a critical role. At the first two elections under the current voting system in 2003 and 2007 the 21 candidates elected were those who were leading on primary votes. In 2011, Pauline Hanson was the first candidate to be overtaken on preferences by the Greens and the Nationals, and Animal Justice has managed to overtake No Land Tax this time around.

Group 1 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390
ALP 164713 164028 164796 165736 166452 166842 167460 169007 171078 181493 184054
SFP 167871 168292 168450 168602 169743 171840 173514 174652 175803 176540 177563
CDP 126305 126969 127141 127456 127656 127857 127974 128241 128503 129309 133989
AJP 76819 77464 77764 77996 78606 78841 80897 82290 84089 89720 91420
NLT 82054 81684 81798 81914 82331 82481 83971 85382 86093 86837 88243
LNP 73607 73837 74653 75234 76245 76571 77563 78560 80415 81825 0
GRN 35626 37193 40267 42961 43190 43807 44299 45248 48815 0 0
VEP 40710 41529 41974 42319 42506 42627 42990 43896 0 0 0
NPM 34852 35508 35703 35795 36865 37167 38119 0 0 0 0
ORP 31445 31789 32066 32153 32877 33248 0 0 0 0 0
FP 31882 32105 32320 32473 32712 0 0 0 0 0 0
AMP 27785 28239 28333 28410 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
DEM 23466 24040 24508 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
CYC 21280 21605 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
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4 COMMENTS

  1. Yes thanks Ben for the updates, which I’ve appreciated having at times been a little too busy to keep up with all the developments in the counting for both houses.

    I noticed overall turnout seems rather low for this election.

  2. Very nice to see the graphical interpretation and analysis. I was pretty confident that the prefs would get us (AJP) ahead, but disappointed overall that more isn’t done to educate the voters about how the system works and the opportunities they have to choose preferences. Way too much exhaustion to consider the voting system is working as intended.

Comments are closed.