The final result for the South Australian election was announced on Monday, but the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) only published the full numbers yesterday afternoon, which now gives us a chance to see how the race played out, and how close it came to a different result.
This is the third election in South Australia since the state abolished group voting tickets (GVTs) for the Legislative Council prior to the 2018 election. In all three elections, the eleven candidates who won were those who were leading on primary votes. Preferences have not changed any result.
For this blog post, I am going to look at how the position of each party shifted during the count, and compare the size of the margin to 2018 and 2022.
Nine seats were decided on primary votes, and One Nation’s third candidate Rebecca Hewett held over 0.9 quotas, and was in no doubt of winning the tenth seat. Those ten seats split 4 ALP, 3 ONP, 2 LIB, 1 GRN, with one left in play.
Based on the primary vote count, Labor’s fifth candidate Clare Scriven was leading in the race for the eleventh seat on primary votes, with 0.42 quotas. Trailing behind her was Legalise Cannabis on 0.29 quotas, Family First on 0.25 quotas and the Greens’ second candidate on 0.22 quotas.
At all three of the elections conducted under this electoral system, Labor has been in the lead for the final seat, with less than half a quota. And in all three cases, Labor won that last seat.
To compare this position to the last two elections:
- In 2018, Labor was on 0.47 quotas, with the Conservatives on 0.42
- In 2022, Labor was on 0.44 quotas, with the Liberal Democrats on 0.40 quotas and Family First on 0.37 quotas
So Labor’s lead was substantially bigger in 2026 than at the previous two elections.
This chart shows the position of the last few parties in the count – starting with their primary vote position, and then their position as each party was knocked out late in the count.
The Greens slowly closed the gap, first on Legalise Cannabis and eventually on Family First, overtaking the latter party on Legalise Cannabis preferences.
While Labor started out 0.13 quotas ahead of their closest rival, and 0.2 quotas ahead of the Greens, by the end the Greens only trailed by 0.11 quotas – or just over 10,000 votes.
It appears that South Australia has a similar phenomenon to what we’ve seen in New South Wales – parties of the left tend to gain more preferences, with their voters more enthusiastic about filling out preferences. It is this tendency that led to candidates of the left overtaking and defeating candidates of the right in 2011, 2015 and 2019. In New South Wales, we’ve seen voters marking more preferences over time – it will be interesting to see if the same is true in South Australia.
Of course this left-leaning preference bias hasn’t produced any changes in South Australia, which is partly explained by the election of just eleven members. A bigger election would likely see some seats flip under the effect of preferences.
In 2018 and 2022, parties of the left started in the lead and then increased their lead over parties of the right:
- In 2018, Labor’s lead over the Conservatives increased from 0.06 to 0.08 quotas
- In 2022, Labor’s lead over the Liberal Democrats increased from 0.07 to 0.09 quotas
This year was a bit different – Labor did gain ground over Family First, but faced a rival on the left in the Greens. In the end, it wasn’t exceptionally close, but it does show that Labor may not always be the beneficiary of this trend.
It’s also the first time I’ve seen the Greens get close to winning a second seat in a South Australian upper house election, and could light the way for future campaigns.
