February 2025

WA2025 – Tracking the Early Voting Statistics

After a record early vote at the 2021 election, in large part driven by Covid, the rate of both pre-poll and postal voting have declined slightly at the 2025 election.

As of close of voting on Thursday 6 March –

  • a total of 557,693 Early votes have been cast representing 29.8% of enrolment
  • in 2021 the totals were 585,774 representing 34.1% of enrolment.
  • Early votes made up 40.2% of formal votes in 2021.
  • The final Friday saw a record 107,157 votes taken compared to 86,548 on the final day of pre-polling in 2021.
  • Around 215,000 postal vote applications were received, down on the number in 2021. As of Wednesday around 130,000 have been returned and are ready for counting on election night. The number of postal votes is well down on 2021 when there were 333,377 postal applications, 311,598 postal vote packs dispatched, and 246,120 returned, a return rate of 73.8%.
  • As percentages the postal applications were 19.4% in 2021 but the figure in 2025 is well down at 14.4%.

In 2025 Early voting is restricted to the two weeks before polling day. In 2021 there were an extra two days on the Friday and Saturday before the final two weeks. 94,379 Early votes were taken on these two days in 2021. There is no early voting on the first Monday in March public holiday. In 2021 the public holiday was two weeks before polling day. In 2025 it is one week before polling day on 3 March.

Graphs of Early voting by day and accumulated percentages are inside the post. I hope to have some information on postal voting next week.Read More »WA2025 – Tracking the Early Voting Statistics

Why I’ve Decided to Retire from Presenting Elections Plus a few words of thanks

Those watching News Breakfast this morning saw me announce that this year’s Federal election will be my last as an on-air analyst as part of ABC election coverages.

The ABC has put out a press release about my decision, but this post is a view from my perspective of my long career covering elections, a few people who I have to thank, and a few memories and anecdotes.

And I’ve added a few pictures from the past.

(Below: 2013 Federal election, the first from studio rather than the tally room)

(Below: In action, 2016 Federal election, coverage from ABC Foyer, Ultimo)
Read More »Why I’ve Decided to Retire from Presenting Elections Plus a few words of thanks

WA 2025 – Summary of Parties and Candidates

Nominations closed yesterday for the Western Australian election. At this stage I have been unable get hold of the published data file of nominations but have been able to confirm the lower house numbers. I believe I have also sorted out the upper house numbers.

A total of 398 candidates have nominated for the lower house, the Legislative Assembly. There are four electorates with only four candidates (Cannington, Carine, Hillarys and Perth) and eight electorates with nine candidates (Albany, Bateman, Geraldton, Joondalup, Kalgoorlie, Kwinana, Nedlands and Southern River). This is down from 463 candidates in 2021.

I await formal confirmation but I understand the Legislative Council numbers are as follows. There are 148 candidates across 13 groups and an ungrouped column. This is well down on the 325 candidates that contested the upper house in 2021. New party registration rules mean there are fewer parties, and instead of nominating two candidates in each of six regions, parties need only nominate five candidates on the state-wide ballot for access to an above-the-line voting square on the ballot paper.

More on party affiliations and the candidate numbers inside the post. Read More »WA 2025 – Summary of Parties and Candidates

Live Coverage of the Prahran and Werribee By-elections

With a Federal election just weeks away, there’s deep interest in two Victorian state by-elections being held today.

The first is in the inner-city seat of Prahran, vacant following the resignation of former Greens MLA Sam Hibbins. With no Labor candidate in the field, it is expected that the Greens will retain the seat.

There is greater interest in the Werribee by-election caused by the departure of former state Treasurer Tim Pallas. It’s in Melbourne’s outer south-west suburbs, an area where government services and capital works expenditure has been lagging rapid population growth. That recent elections have seen marginal seats in outer south-east Melbourne attract greater promises than Labor’s safe western Melbourne seats has not gone without notice.

I won’t be doing any commentary here. This post is simply a pointer to my by-election coverage page. This post is to re-direct with the huge spike in visitors this site receives via Google on any night when there is an election.

I will be running a live results update service and providing commentary on the ABC’s elections site.

You can find Prahran results here.

And the Werribee results here.

And there is a commentary page where I will add comments on both results.

You can navigate between the results pages and access the pages of background material on the contests that has been available on the site for several weeks.Read More »Live Coverage of the Prahran and Werribee By-elections