The Tally Room

Following a few days of campaign cameos by John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Mark Latham, Malcolm Fraser and John Hewson, two new polls today both have the ALP with slim leads. The Newspoll in the Australian has the ALP back to an election-winning lead with 52%...

Since the Group Voting Tickets were announced on Sunday, there has been wide-ranging discussions about how people can vote below the line. There has been a campaign for Victorian voters to put Stephen Conroy last, and a group has set up a website that...

The AEC yesterday released the preference orders determined by political parties running in the Senate, which will be used to distribute above-the-line preferences, and determine Senate results in a difficult-to-understand process. William Bowe at the Poll Bludger has posted simplified versions of the tickets, and...

The declaration of nominations took place at midday yesterday at local electoral offices all over Australia. It took most of the day before lists of candidates appeared on the AEC website. There has been a marked reduction in the numbers of candidates standing. The AEC...

Apologies for the absence over the last week. I'm busily working on the election campaign for the Greens NSW and, as you'd expect, things are very busy right now. I'm going to be at the declaration of nominations for the Senate in NSW at midday...

From the Nielsen poll in today's Fairfax papers, Labor's two-party preferred vote is up two to 54%. On primary votes, Labor is up three to 42, the Coalition down one to 41 and the Greens down one to 12. There have also been a number...

The Australian version of the 'Straight Choice' franchise was launched yesterday, at electionleaflets.org.au. Somehow they have already got a flow of leaflets appearing on the site, one of which particularly caught my eye. Australia First has distributed a leaflet in the seat of Riverina that...

The debate over the internet filter has demonstrated that an expertise in technology and social media doesn't necessarily translate into political smarts. Stilgherrian ripped apart those who seriously believed that Julia Gillard would replace Communications Minister Stephen Conroy with Senator Kate Lundy, a senator with...

Yesterday, Essential followed Newspoll and Galaxy, with a poll showing the ALP with 55% of the two-party preferred vote. The ALP is steady on 41%, the Coalition up one to 39%, and the Greens steady on 13%. This puts them in a similar position...

We've had two polls come out in the last few hours showing remarkably divergent results. Galaxy has brought out their second poll of the weekend. After a poll conducted on Thursday and Friday gave the ALP a lead of 52-48 on a two-party preferred basis,...