The Tally Room

After early signs indicating that the Democrats were in danger of losing control of the Senate this week, it now looks like the Democrats are set on maintaining their majority, with the most likely outcome seeing both parties maintaining the same number of seats...

I've blogged a few times over the last couple of years about the perverse processes used in most US states when drawing electoral boundaries for Congress and state legislatures. In a series of referendums in 2008 and 2010, California's voters approved the creation of an...

Earlier today I blogged about how the number of battleground states has dwindled down to only eight states: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa and Wisconsin. All eight of these states were won by Barack Obama in 2008. Two states won by Obama...

It's not new to write about the flaws of the electoral college: how it makes some states important and makes other states irrelevant, and how it produce perverse incentives in terms of policy. However what has become clear as we enter the final stretch...

A week from now, American voters will decide what is looking like being an extremely close presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Barack Obama appeared to be on track for a comfortable victory as he gained a solid lead over Romney following the...

The results from Saturday's Sydney state by-election were decisive. It was a clear victory for independent candidate Alex Greenwich, and for Clover Moore's political machine that supported his campaign. The result was a slap in the face to the Liberal Party, who passed legislation forcing...

Results of Sydney by-election 24/24 booths reporting primary votes. 24/24 booths reporting two-candidate-preferred votes. Candidate Party Prim % Swing 2PP % Swing Robyn Peebles CDP 1.9% +0.8% Alex Greenwich IND 48.5% +12.2% 64.9% +11.8% Chris Harris GRN 17.7% +5.0% Shayne Mallard LIB 29.8% -6.4% 35.1% -11.8% Glenn Wall IND 2.1% 2.1% 8:41pm - I was planning on posting a map of who won each booth, but it's not worth it. Below is the map produced showing the...

Last weekend I was at the Marrickville Festival and ended up chatting with one of the members of the local heritage society. For a while I've been fascinated by all of the old local councils that used to exist in Sydney prior to the...

In addition to the Sydney by-election, Saturday is election day for 78 councils across Victoria. I haven't been following the Victorian council elections closely and I probably won't be covering them in depth or being in a position to analyse them in the same depth...

Read the Tally Room guide to the Sydney by-election. Voters in the state electorate of Sydney will be voting on Saturday to choose a replacement for the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, who was forced to resign as a state MP due to a...