February 2021

Western Australian Legislative Council Calculators Launched

Today I have launched my Legislative Council calculators for the Western Australian election.

You can find the calculators for each region at this link, an explanation of how they work on this page, and links to the group voting tickets for each region over here.

At the 2017 election, more than 95% of votes in all six regions were cast as single ‘1’ above the line tickets, meaning those votes were counted according to each party’s lodged group voting tickets.

The asymmetry of effort between casting a single ‘1’ for a party above the line, or laboriously numbering more than 50 preferences below the line, herds voters into accepting the preference deals and voting above the line for a single party. That sends their vote off on a preferential magical mystery tour across the ballot paper.

As usual there are complex micro-party preference harvesting deals, though not as locked together as at some previous elections. Each of the micro-parties has been allocated a region in which they will be favoured. These are – Read More »Western Australian Legislative Council Calculators Launched

The Gurgle Hole of History – Leaders who’ve lost their Seats at Elections

Western Australia’s Liberal Leader Zak Kirkup holds his seat of Dawesville by a margin of just 0.8%.

According to the Newspoll in this morning’s The Australian, the swing to Labor at the state election on 13 March could be more than ten times Kirkup’s margin in Dawesville. Kirkup is clearly in danger of losing his seat, even if you intone the usual caveats about margin of error and the perils of assuming uniform swing.

It raises the grim prospect for Kirkup that his name could soon be added to an unwanted list – that of government leaders and opposition leaders who have lost their seats at an election.Read More »The Gurgle Hole of History – Leaders who’ve lost their Seats at Elections

Donkey Vote Advantages for the 2021 Western Australian Election

With nominations for the WA election now published, it’s worth assessing what small advantage candidates and parties will gain from the ‘donkey vote’.

I have published all candidates in ballot paper order on the ABC’s election website if you want investigate the ballot orders yourself. I have also summarised the nominations in another blog post.

Analysis of Australian elections has always shown that a small advantage accrues to the candidate that appears first on a lower house ballot paper. As the number of candidates increases, the advantage seems to increase. No one wants to be listed last on a ballot paper with a dozen or more candidates, a disadvantage the Liberal Party suffered at last year’s Eden-Monaro by-election.

A similar advantage exists with upper house ballot papers for groups that appear in the first column at the left hand edge of the ballot paper. Experience has shown this advantage is even greater when there is confusion over ballot paper names. That will certainly be a problem for the Liberal Party at the 2021 WA election.
Read More »Donkey Vote Advantages for the 2021 Western Australian Election

A Record Number of Candidate Nominate for Western Australian Election

For the second election in a row, a record number of candidates have nominated to contest a Western Australian election.

The surge in numbers is largely down to a surge in minor party lower house nominations in support of upper house campaigns.

A total of 463 candidates have nominated for the 59 districts in the Legislative Assembly, and another 325 for the 36 vacancies in the Legislative Council.

All candidates have now been uploaded to the ABC’s election website.
Read More »A Record Number of Candidate Nominate for Western Australian Election

Kalgoorlie – Changing Boundaries, Changing Votes

Kalgoorlie was one of the Western Australian regional seats whose politics was upended by the introduction of one-vote one-value electoral boundaries. As was also the case with Albany and Geraldton, a small urban seat suddenly expanded to include rural areas. And in the case of Kalgoorlie, to include vast remote districts.

It wasn’t just new boundaries that changed the political complexion of Kalgoorlie. Labor had already lost the seat in 2001 as the result of a decline in Labor support that began in the 1980s.

(This post is an extract from the Kalgoorlie page of my 2021 WA Election guide. You can find the full electorate profile here.)

Read More »Kalgoorlie – Changing Boundaries, Changing Votes

Western Australian Election Site Updates

(This post is being updated most days. See inside post for details)

My 2021 Western Australian Election Website has been published on the ABC website. While published at the start of campaign, the site continues to have material added to it on a daily basis.

As an experiment, I’m going to maintain this post as a daily log of updates.

For anyone who wants to submit candidate information for the site, don’t send it through this blog. Please use the ABC elections e-mail link.

Wednesday 3 March

Read More »Western Australian Election Site Updates

The Battle for Albany

Before discussing the battle for Albany, I’ll give a plug for my 2021 Western Australian election guide that is now available on the ABC website.

The guide has all the usual bells and whistles, backgrounds on all seats, maps with 2017 polling place results, background on candidates, and indexes by candidate name, electorate name and electorate margin. The site is not static and is updated on a daily basis. Full lists of candidates will be added after the release of nominations on 12 February, and upper house calculators will be launched once group voting tickets have been lodged.

But back to this post’s subject – Albany. It is almost an anti-bellwether seat, having been retained by Labor for two decades, against all state-wide trends, almost entirely due to the personal vote of sitting Labor MLA Peter Watson.

Watson is retiring at the 2021 election. Albany is Labor’s 10th most marginal seat with a margin on 5.9%. Without Watson, can Labor hold Albany?Read More »The Battle for Albany