December 2025

Do How-to-votes Matter? Evidence from the 2022 SA Election

Too often I hear criticism that preferential voting is corrupted by the majority of voters simply copying how-to-vote (HTV) preference recommendations. The same critics tend to decry that preference “deals” determine elections.

Talk of preference “deals” is a hangover from the now abolished Senate group voting ticket (GVT) system. In the GVT era, 90-95% of ballot papers in the Senate were single ‘1’ above the line votes with preferences determined by the party’s registered preference ticket. Preferences became a tradeable commodity with parties delivering 90-95% of preferences by arranged deals.

Those arranged “deals” never applied to lower house elections and have not applied for Senate elections since the abolition of GVTs in 2016. So-called “deals” on lower house preferences are about what parties and candidates distribute as how-to-vote recommendations. Most so-called “deals” are more expressions of shared or common interest between parties.

HTVs can have an impact, but much less than opponents of preferential voting suggest. All available research on ballot paper completion shows that the majority of voters do not copy HTV preference recommendations.

The Victorian and South Australian Electoral Commissions regularly analyse ballot papers and have determined that around 40% of major party voters complete their ballot paper with their preferred party’s HTV preference sequence. The proportion following HTVs is even lower for minor parties and independents. The difference in follow rate is largely related to the proportion of voters who receive the HTV for a particular party or candidate. Obviously the probability of a voter copying a HTV recommendation is higher if they receive a HTV than if they don’t.

Most countries ban campaigning at polling places, but Australia permits campaigning and the distribution of how-to-vote material, if done politely.

Several years ago I wrote a long post on why candidates and parties distribute how-to-votes. Overwhelmingly the point of HTVs is to influence first preferences and to encourage the casting of formal votes. For minor parties being able to influence preferences may also be important, but the follow rate for minor party HTVs is low if they do not actively campaign.

The weakness in trying to assess the impact of HTVs is that not every voter receives their preferred party or candidate’s HTV. If we knew who received a how-to-vote, and how they completed their ballot paper, we would have a better measure of HTV influence. But the secrecy of the ballot makes it impossible to link a ballot paper to a voter.

Instead we are stuck with follow rates based on all ballot papers. But do we get a better measure of HTV influence if we are confident that most voters saw all candidate’s HTVs.

There is one Australian jurisdiction where we know that many more voters see HTV recommendations.

That is South Australia where there is a unique provision that allows HTVs for all candidates in a district to be displayed in front of a voter in a voting booth.

Let me explain the South Australian system and then go on to compare preference flow data from the 2022 South Australian election with the HTVs displayed in voting booths.

For those who want the data behind this post, you can find the full data by district, and summary tables by party, at the following link.

The preferences document is part of a longer publication I’ve prepared on the results of the 2022 South Australian election. You can find it here or read about it here in a post about the publication yesterday.

You can find my 2022 South Australian Election results publication at this link.

I also published a similar analysis of 2018 South Australian preference flows and HTVs at this link.

Read More »Do How-to-votes Matter? Evidence from the 2022 SA Election

Results Publication on the 2022 South Australian Election

Ahead of March’s South Australian election, I’ve prepared a publication summarising the results of the last South Australian election in 2022.

The publication includes a summary of all House of Assembly results including primary, two-candidate and two-party preferred votes, percentages and swings by district. There are also summary statistics across districts for swing, and results for Adelaide versus the rest of the state. There’s a summary of the 2020/21 redistribution as well as details of changes in Assembly and Council membership.

The publications includes detailed analysis of two-candidate preference flow data by candidate by district as well as two-party flows for the six districts that did not finish as two-party contests. The preferences section also includes aggregated preferences by district by party. All tables include reference to which candidate/party was favoured by each excluded candidate’s how-to-vote recommendation.

Finally there is detail of the Legislative Council election with tables summarised by party and by candidate. The section includes a break down by party of how many voters cast a single “1” above the line vote, and how many used the new ATL preferencing option. A summary of the preference distribution is included along with details of the Council result by each Assembly district. There’s also a summary table comparing party percentages in the Assembly and the Council.

The publication is rounded out with regional outline maps of the electoral boundaries used for the 2022 election, and there are some tables of historic SA election results.

You can find my 2022 South Australian Election results publication at this link.

Inside the post I’ve included the statistical summary from the front of the publication.Read More »Results Publication on the 2022 South Australian Election

FED2025 – House Results in Victoria

I felt a certain sense of deja vu ahead of the 2025 election when it appeared the fate of the Albanese government could swing on the unpopularity of a Victorian state Labor government.

At the first Federal election I covered in March 1990, Victoria was Labor’s weak state. It was still eight months until Paul Keating uttered his ‘recession we had to have’ line, but already in March the economic failings of the Victorian Labor government had tipped the state’s economy into recession.

In March 1990 the full scale of the Victorian government’s financial disasters were still months from being known, but the souring electoral mood was to cost the Hawke government ten seats south of the Murray. It took gains elsewhere for Labor to win a narrow re-election.

The narrative ahead of the 2025 election had similarities. As I wrote in my election preview, “The question for 2025 is whether the Albanese government can distance itself from the state Labor government, or whether the Liberal Party can successfully tie the two together. Peter Dutton will also need to rally the factionalised and dispirited Victorian branch of the Liberal Party, not an easy task for a Queenslander.”

Yet it was in Victoria that Labor had gained an extra seat at the April 2023 Aston by-election. It was in Victoria that Labor retained the marginal Labor seat of Dunkley at a March 2024 by-election. At both by-elections, Peter Dutton was perceived as a negative for the Liberal Party with Victorian voters, compounded by on-going fratricide within the Liberal Party’s state branch.

Federal Labor’s wariness of its state brethren could be gauged by the scarcity of joint campaign events featuring Anthony Albanese and Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan. It contrasted with high rotation appearances with Labor Premiers Roger Cook (WA), Peter Malinauskas (SA) and Chris Minns (NSW).

But as elsewhere in Australia, election night shredded pre-election perceptions. Labor increased its Victorian vote and number of seats held. Labor’s Victorian two-party preferred vote was higher than in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia. Victoria joined Western Australia at the low end of swings to Labor, but both both states started from a high Labor vote in 2022.Read More »FED2025 – House Results in Victoria

Electoral Pendulum for 2026 South Australian Election

(Updated 8 December – Schubert Liberal member Ashton Hurn will be elected new Liberal Leader unopposed. Post has been updated with maps colour coded by holding party.)

South Australian Liberal Leader Vincent Tarzia has today resigned citing the pressure of leading the Liberal Party while trying to raise a young family. He still intends to contest his marginal seat of Hartley at the looming state election.

Given Hartley has a margin of only 3.6%, it is hard to see how Tarzia can retain his seat at the state election in March given polls are predicting a double-digit swing to Labor.

Inside this post I have published an electoral pendulum for the state election to be held on 21 March.

The Labor Party easily won the won the 2022 election, ending the one term government of Liberal Premier Steven Marshall.

Labor won 27 of the 47 seats in the House of Assembly. Labor has since gained two more seats at by-elections, winning Steven Marshall’s former seat of Dunstan in March 2023, and Black formerly held by his successor David Spiers in November 2024.

Of the 16 elections since 1970, Labor has won 12 to the Liberal Party’s four. The electoral geography of South Australia has often delivered government to Labor without the party achieving a majority of the two-party preferred vote.

But that wasn’t a problem in 2022 with Labor recording 54.6% of the state-wide two-party preferred vote. It was Labor’s second best result since 1970, bettered only by Mike Rann’s landslide re-election in 2006.

Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas is immensely popular. October’s Demos opinion poll had him leading Tarzia as preferred Premier 58% to 19%. The poll had Labor on 66% of the two-party preferred vote.

If repeated at the state election on 21 March, Malkinauskas will challenge the greatest landslide election record set by former WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan in 2021.

After gaining the seats of two Liberal leaders since 2022, Labor will be keen to add a third in Tarzia’s seat of Hartley. And maybe go for fourth depending on who emerges as the new leader.

On current polling Labor will win every seat on the plain of Adelaide and could even push up into the Adelaide Hills given Labor’s good result in Mayo at the Federal election.

The Liberal Party will do well if it can retain a handful of rural seats. Even in rural areas, the party is facing serious challenges from Independents, and several former Liberal members already sit on the cross bench.

Already Labor seems to be taking the opportunity for generational change, something the party did very well before losing office for a single term in 2018. Five high profile Labor members including several ministers have announced they will retire. Two decade veteran Tony Piccolo will also shift from his safe seat of Light to try and win the Liberal seat of Ngadjuri (formerly Frome).

Three Liberals have announced their retirement, and all hold seats that Labor is strongly placed to win.

Inside the post I have a new electoral pendulum that takes account of the redistribution completed earlier this year. I also include notes on some of the more complex contests where new boundaries, defections and departures complicate the analysis.
Read More »Electoral Pendulum for 2026 South Australian Election

Comments on the Hinchinbrook By-election Result

Predictions ahead of Saturday’s by-election in the north Queensland seat of Hinchinbrook generally hinted the seat would be retained by Katter’s Australian Party.

The LNP mounted a vigorous campaign, but in a time when voters seem attracted by alternatives to the major parties, the collective wisdom was that Katter’s Australian Party would retain Hinchinbrook.

The by-election had been caused by the resignation of Nick Dametto, MLA for the seat since 2017. Dametto resigned to contest election as Mayor of Townsville and won easily with 61.5% of the first preference vote.

But the election of his successor in Hinchinbrook went against expectations. LNP candidate Wayde Chiesa won with 41.4% of the first preference vote, 53.8% after preferences, and a swing of 17.0%.

It was the first time a Queensland seat had been gained by a governing party at a by-election since 1998 when the Beattie Labor government won the nearby north Queensland seat of Mulgrave from One Nation. In Mulgrave the One Nation MLA had served less than six months, which leaves Hinchinbrook as a more significant victory with the LNP winning back a seat lost in 2017.

Inside the post I’ll look at the implications of the result, for LNP Queensland re-election prospects, for Labor given the collapse in the party’s support, and examine prospects for One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party.

In my view, it is hard to draw firm conclusions. Hinchinbrook is a traditional National/LNP seat, but one where the LNP has constantly been threatened by third parties. It has long been a weak seat for Labor, and Labor contesting the seat can only have been to maintain morale in local party branches, and to avoid giving Labor supporters a chance to practice voting for the Greens.

Labor’s concern in the result is if the unusually low Hinchinbrook result is reflective of declining Labor support in Townsville and other Queensland coastal cities. The last two Federal elections have shown that Labor can win elections without winning rural and regional seats, a situation that also applies in other mainland states. But that’s not the case in Queensland.

There are not enough winnable seats in south-east Queensland to deliver a majority Labor government. The Queensland Labor Party relies on winning a number of seats in the state’s coastal regional cities for victory. Labor lost the 2024 election on the back of regional losses and needs to turn around declining regional support if it hopes to win the 2028 state election.
Read More »Comments on the Hinchinbrook By-election Result