The Tally Room

The Senate race in the Australian Capital Territory often promises to get interesting, but never really does. The quota for election in the ACT is just over one third of the total formal vote, and the two seats have been split evenly between Labor...

The Australian reported on Sunday about an idea from Queensland LNP senator James McGrath that would see the Senate broken up so that senators represent "provinces" within each state. While details are scarce, this proposal would see the end of proportional representation in the Senate, would...

This is the latest in my occasional series looking back at the final results of the 2019 federal election. The 2019 federal election was the second election held under the new Senate voting system, which included changes to make it easier to vote below-the-line. The...

I posted back in March about the Queensland government's proposed reforms to local government in that state. The reforms include a bunch of other changes to electoral finance and council procedures, but I focused on two proposed changes: introducing compulsory preferential voting for single-member...

New South Wales council elections are due in September 2020, which means that local councils right now are having to decide who they will contract to run their election. This may seem strange to people not familiar with NSW council elections. In most states, all...

The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) last Friday released the draft boundaries for the Brisbane City Council election, due in March 2020. I've now put together a map of the electoral boundaries, and I've also calculated margins in all 26 wards, as well as...

Along with the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Brisbane City Council, the ACT has also been redrawing its electoral boundaries for the local Legislative Assembly, with the boundaries finalised in July. In this post I'll share a map showing the changes to the electoral boundaries,...