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!
Thanks Ben, is it possible to get an update o Calwell
Ben
In Monash, do you know which are the 11 booths, the AEC have now added a 12th which is obviously Welshpool where Aldred is way ahead on the 3CP and Leonard way behind Labor. Just taking that one booth with a multiplier, Leonard would end up about 2% behind Labor.
I’m quite sceptical of your correction. The Labor lean is the result of the inclusion of postal votes (which make up roughly 18.4% of the sample compared to the 14.75% of the current count). Your decision to reduce the impact of the postal votes to make the 14.75% is mistaken since (according to envelopes issued) postal votes may make up 26.5% of the final total count. Furthermore, the rate at which labor has been benefiting from the postal votes has not reduced since the initial 4000 counted which indicates that the Greens are unlikely reverse the gains made by Hack. What this early 3cp shows is that the Minor Party vote isn’t following primarily LNP GRN as has been assumed.
Ben are you sure you have the 3CP for Flinders right? If you take your project 3CP off the current primaries you get
LIB: gaining 2.36 on the 3CP (16.29% of minor vote)
LAB: gaining 4.57 on the 3CP (31.54% of minor vote)
IND: gaining 7.56 on the 3CP (52.17% of minor vote)
Does this not seem a bit too low for the Libs? If you switched the Lib and Lab numbers up that would make sense.
Thanks for the work Ben! Did you have any thoughts on McPherson? It’s definitely pretty unlikely, but William Bowe’s model has a small chance (around a percent) that the independent wins by overtaking Labor at the 3CP stage.
There is no update on Calwell, it’s probably going to be undecided until they do the final DoP. I haven’t had a chance to check McPherson.
As for Flinders, perhaps this reflects the issue with postal votes, but that is the result I’m getting.
Ben how about Fisher? It looks fairly sure now that the indie will make the 2CP, and I’d imagine they’d win off Labor prefs, no? Am I missing something? Also as people say regularly, thanks for all the great work!
I think that gap is probably too wide.
On the AEC website, it’s got libs 38%, ind 36% and labor 25%. Surely Labor preferences would be expected to split enough to close that?
It’s only six booths. I’ll check it when I update the data tonight.
Oh ok, thanks!