Tasmania 2010: Preference count

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Preference counts for the five electorates in the Tasmanian state election are currently being undertaken by the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, and progressive counts are being posted on the TEC website for Bass, Braddon, Denison, Franklin and Lyons.

Final update: The count has now concluded, with the Greens winning the fifth seat in Braddon and the Liberals winning the final seat in Denison, producing a result of 10 Labor, 10 Liberal and 5 Greens.

In Denison, Lisa Singh has just been excluded, with Helen Burnet currently running 500 votes behind Andrew Wilkie. After the distribution of Singh’s preferences, and possibly those from Scott Bacon’s election, either Burnet and Wilkie will be excluded. As it stands the combined Burnet/Wilkie vote is well ahead of that for Liberal candidate Elise Archer.

Update: In Denison, Singh’s exclusion has put Burnet less than 400 votes away from Wilkie, while Scott Bacon has just over 1000 votes to distribute as a surplus. Archer is 1600 votes ahead of Wilkie, which you’d assume he could easily overtake with the 1000 Labor surplus and the 5000+ Burnet vote if he can stay ahead of Burnet. In Bass, the race for the second seat is close between Brian Wightman, Scott McLean and Brant Webb, with all three polling over 3000 votes, with two more Liberal candidates and the second Greens candidate yet to be excluded.

Update 2: In Lyons, Tim Morris has been elected in first place and has 2500 votes to distribute. Sitting Labor MP David Llewellyn is leading fellow Labor candidate Rebecca White by only 43 votes.

7:21pm – Following the distribution of Tim Morris’ preferences in Lyons, Rebecca White is now 76 votes ahead of Llewellyn. Liberal candidate James Playsted is now being excluded with 4849 votes. His preferences should decide who will win the second Liberal seat between Mark Shelton (5843) and Jane Howlett (5492).

7:24pm – The race for the second Labor seat in Bass stands at Brian Wightman (4255), Scott McLean (3973), Brant Webb (3481). Liberal candidates Nick Pedley (2158) and Michele McGinity (3538) and Greens candidate Jeremy Ball (3452) are yet to be excluded, while Greens MP Kim Booth is less than 100 votes away from reaching a quota.

7:40pm – The exclusion of Melissa Houghton, the last Greens support candidate in Braddon, has seen most of her preferences flow to Paul O’Halloran. Altogether O’Halloran is on 0.8 quotas, down from the 0.83 that the Greens won in primary votes, which seems like a strong flow of preferences.

7:51pm – Helen Burnet is out, 390 votes behind Wilkie. Wilkie needs to gain 1641 votes on Archer from Burnet’s 6032 preferences to win. Only one count to go.

8:44pm – In Franklin, the race for the last two spots is now down to Jacquie Petrusma (8942), Tony Mulder (6705), David O’Byrne (6611), Adam Burling (6003) with Daniel Hulme now being excluded with 3498 votes. His preferences should take O’Byrne close to a quota and then Burling and Mulder will likely be excluded.

8:54pm – Wilkie is 367 votes behind Archer with 466 more Burnet votes left to distribute, so it appears that Wilkie won’t be able to close the gap, giving the Liberals at least ten seats.

9:15pm – In Lyons, after the exclusion of James Playsted, Mark Shelton is beating Jane Howlett by 154 votes for the second Liberal seat while Rebecca White has increased her lead to 96 over David Llewellyn for the second Labor seat. Howlett should be excluded next and you would expect most would flow to Shelton then exhaust, although it is possible Liberal preferences could bring Llewellyn back.

9:24pm – The Denison count has concluded, with Liberal candidate Elise Archer winning the final seat.

9:39pm – The count has finished for the evening in Lyons, with Mark Shelton outpolling Jane Howlett by 194 votes, triggering Howlett’s exclusion, presumably electing Shelton on her preferences.

9:41pm – Counting has also finished for the evening in Bass, Braddon and Franklin, with no further updates. I will resume tomorrow morning, if I am at a computer.

11:15pm, day two – Brant Webb has now been excluded in Bass, his preferences (3894)  should decide between fellow ALP candidates Brian Wightman (4747) and Scott McLean (4271). In Franklin, last standing Greens candidate Adam Burling has now been excluded, and David O’Byrne and Jacquie Petrusma should win the final two seats.

12:47pm – Rene Hidding has now been elected in Lyons, and his preferences now being distributed should push fellow Liberal Mark Shelton over the line. Rebecca White is now outpolling David Llewellyn by 320 votes for the second Labor seat, and unless a surplus from Hidding and Shelton strongly favours Llewellyn, White should win that seat. Fellow Labor candidate Michael Polley is still 210 votes short of a quota, but he should be pushed over on preferences from Hidding.

1:59pm – Scott McLean has now been excluded in Bass. His 6000 votes will decide the last seat between Liberal candidate Michele McGinity (6522) and ALP candidate Brian Wightman (6260), and I would expect that his preferences will strongly favour Wightman and give him the seat.

2:06pm – The latest position in Braddon, after the election of one Labor and one Liberal is as follows. The quota is 10747.

  • 9854 – Adam Brooks (LIB)
  • 9849 – Brenton Best (ALP)
  • 9030 – Paul O’Halloran (GRN)
  • 8390 – Brett Whiteley (LIB)
  • 5481 – Shane Broad (ALP)

On these numbers, you would assume that Broad’s preferences will elect Best and will likely determine the final seat between O’Halloran and Whiteley. I would expect most ALP preferences would exhaust once Broad has been excluded and Best has been elected, and those remaining will slightly favour the Greens.

2:43pm – David O’Byrne has been elected as the second Labor candidate in Franklin on the preferences of Daniel Hulme. The last remaining count will see Jacquie Petrusma elected to the final seat over fellow Liberal Tony Mulder.

2:45pm – Mark Shelton has been elected to the third seat in Franklin. His 1954-vote surplus should decide which two Labor candidates are elected between Michael Polley (10576), Rebecca White (9425) and David Llewellyn (9065).

3:33pm – The count has now concluded in Bass with Brian Wightman winning the second ALP seat.

3:36pm – The count is also effectively concluded in Lyons. Michael Polley has been elected with 152 votes in surplus, which is not enough for David Llewellyn to bridge the 553-vote gap to defeat Rebecca White. This makes him the fifth sitting MP to lose his seat, alongside Lisa Singh, Graeme Sturges, Daniel Hulme and Ross Butler, with Liberal MP Brett Whiteley also at risk in Braddon.

3:52pm – The count has now also concluded in Franklin, with Jacquie Petrusma claiming the final seat for the Liberal Party. Bass, Denison, Franklin and Lyons have all produced 2-2-1 results, and we are now only waiting on the distribution of ALP candidate Shane Broad’s preferences in Braddon to decide the final seat between the Greens and Liberals.

3:55pm – Another interesting fact – the Tasmanian House of Assembly will have 19 men and 6 women following the election. This is down from 18 men and 7 women after the 2006 election. Labor lost two men and two women, the Liberals elected one extra woman and two extra men, and one more man will be elected, either Green or Liberal.

5:12pm – In Braddon, Shane Broad’s preferences have pushed Brenton Best over a quota, with 3513 votes in surplus. As it stands, Paul O’Halloran (GRN) is 771 votes ahead of Brett Whiteley (LIB) in the race for the final seat, while fellow Liberal Adam Brooks is 603 votes short of a quota, and will win the fourth seat. Broad’s preferences in the last round widened O’Halloran’s lead by 130 votes. I’m assuming most Labor preferences will exhaust, with a slight tendency to favour O’Halloran, giving the Greens the final seat.

Elected so far: 9 Labor, 9 Liberal, 4 Greens.

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19 COMMENTS

  1. At 6.55pm Bacon’s leftovers (about 1000) are being distributed in Denison. Hard to see the Greens getting 400 more than Wilkie to bridge the gap, so it looks like Wilkie will need Burnet preferences to overtake Lib Archer. Without counting Bacon’s preferences, Wilkie will need 1700 more preferences from Burnet than Archer – of Burnet’s 5800 votes. Seems likely, with both Burnet and Wilkie being from Hobart and Archer from Glenorchy, but I’m not sure how much of the vote usually exhausts in Tassie elections.

    In other news, former Family First candidate Jacqui Petrusma looks set to get the second Lib seat in Franklin and Labor candidate Bec White is just a few dozen votes behind Labor deadwood David Llewellyn in Lyons.

  2. Ben, when was the last time an independent won a seat in the Tas lower house? Wilkie will be the first since the size of the house was reduced won’t he?

  3. He will yes. Bec White pulls ahead of Llewellyn.

    Burnet out. Wilkie needs to make up 1600 from 6000 votes.

  4. Nick, that would’ve been Bruce Goodluck, 1996-98 in Franklin (the last term of a 35 member house). He’d formerly been a Liberal MP for the federal seat in the 70’s and 80’s.

  5. Ah thanks, I thought there was a Liberal-turned-independent in there somewhere in the 1990s but couldn’t remember whether it was someone originally elected as a Liberal or what. I’m using a very slow internet connection today so didn’t feel like looking it up myself.

  6. Far too few Green votes went to Wilkie.

    Archer wins final seat for Liberals by a few hundred votes. Very dissapointing.

  7. Hodgeman set to be the next Premier of Tasmania.

    A sad night. I really thought that Wilkie had the final seat there, but the preferences just didn’t come. Perhaps a bit of antipathy toward Wilkie from Hobart Greens? No doubt Tassie Times will analyse this in great detail soon enough.

    I’m signing out.

  8. You’d think most Greens voters would prefer Wilkie to a Liberal, why don’t more people allocate preferences?

  9. So is it correct to say that if Burnet had stayed ahead of Wilkie she stood a far greater chance of winning the final seat since Wilkie’s voters would’ve had to preference another party (presumably Greens), whereas the Greens votes could just exhaust after flwoing through their ticket? Doubly disappointing.

  10. Nick, I suspect not. The polling booths show that Wilkie’s vote was pretty much the old Democrat vote and was pretty evenly split between traditional Green and small l liberal voters, so the Libs probably would have gained quite a bit of Wilkie’s preferences too.

  11. A brilliant quote in that article

    “The moral of the story is to always vote all the way through if you care about any party or candidate beside the one you voted 1-5 for. You will not help your preferred candidates or party by stopping. Ever. You will only play into the hands of your political opposites.”

  12. I have respect for Wilkie but I need to ask: would there have been a different outcome if Wilkie did not run?

  13. Joel, no.

    A large enough proportion of Wilkie’s votes would have gone liberal (like the old democrat vote) that the Libs would have got 2 quotas in their own right.

Comments are closed.