Nominations have closed for the South Australian election.
There are a record 388 lower house candidates, an average 8.3 per seat, in excess of the previous record 302 candidates in 2002.
For the first time there will be fields of more than 9 candidates, 10 in Narungga, 11 in Flinders, Kavel and Mount Gambier and 12 in Hammond and Port Adelaide.
There are 17 columns and 47 candidates on the Legislative Council ballot paper, down from 20 columns and 51 candidates in 2022.
You can find candidate lists by electorate at the Electoral Commission SA website.
The number of candidates nominated by party and change since 2022 are shown below.
- Australian Labor Party – 47
- Liberal Party – 47
- The Greens – 47 (+4)
- Pauline Hanson’s One Nation – 47 (+28)
- Australian Family Party – 47 (+41)1)
- Family First – 35 (+1)
- Independent – 33 (+13)
- Sarah Game Fair Go For Australia – 22 (+22)
- Legalise Cannabis – 17 (+17)
- Animal Justice Party – 16 (+6)
- Stephen Pallaras Real Change SA – 12 (+8)
- United Voice Australia – 14 (+14)
- The Nationals – 3 (-5)
- SA Best – 1
- Others 0 (-1)
- TOTAL – 388 (+148)
A note on the above list. Roughly a third of candidates are from small right of centre parties. I presume they are running to boost support for their upper house tickets. This is a problem for the Liberal Party as these parties tap into some of the Liberal Party’s base vote. Votes cast for these parties tend to leak away from the right as preferences. There is no similar fracturing of Labor support from parties to the left of Labor.
Summary of seats contested by party since 1979.
| Election | ALP | LIB | DEM | NAT | GRN | FFP | ONP | SAB | IND | OTH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | 47 | 47 | 36 | 3 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 3 | 3 |
| 1982 | 47 | 47 | 43 | 9 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 2 | .. |
| 1985 | 47 | 47 | 43 | 6 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 18 | 2 |
| 1989 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 4 | .. | .. | .. | .. | 14 | 21 |
| 1993 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 2 | 3 | .. | .. | .. | 60 | 21 |
| 1997 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 4 | 2 | .. | .. | .. | 28 | 22 |
| 2002 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 4 | 22 | 27 | 47 | .. | 26 | 35 |
| 2006 | 47 | 47 | 46 | 4 | 47 | 45 | 6 | .. | 17 | 10 |
| 2010 | 47 | 47 | 8 | 2 | 47 | 47 | .. | .. | 22 | 33 |
| 2014 | 47 | 47 | .. | 2 | 47 | 42 | .. | .. | 11 | 8 |
| 2018 | 47 | 47 | .. | .. | 47 | 33 | .. | 36 | 15 | 39 |
| 2022 | 47 | 47 | .. | 8 | 43 | 34 | 19 | 1 | 20 | 21 |
| 2025 | 47 | 47 | .. | 3 | 47 | 35 | 47 | 1 | 33 | 128 |
The table below shows the number of seats with the indicated number of candidates at elections since the House was expanded to 47 seats in 1970.
“I presume they are running to boost support for their upper house tickets.”
Under the limited OPV system operating for the LC where just voting 1 for your preferred party is permissable, I believe this will add to the exhaustion rate of the social conservative side of politics, thus diluting its impact in determining the seats won in that chamber.
I fear that many voters of this persuation who do not understand the intricacies of the voting system will be unwhitingly disenfranchised.
COMMENT: Asbolutely. One of the consequences of group voting tickets is that there was no pressure for like minded parties to merge. They could all run and GVTs would merge their votes through the preference tickets. It was a useful way to avoid the bruised egos from only one candidate being able to head a ticket with a chance of election. With GVTs abolished, it is now in the interest of smaller parties to merge with like minded parties to maker sure they survive longer in the count. The multiple right of centre parties on the LC ballot paper could cost the right a seat.
I know that we have had many discussions on the most appropriate voting system to replace GVTs. You have argued successfully for the adoption of OPV ATL, relative to my position on FPV. It becomes a trade-off between high rates of informal votes verses high rates of exhaustion.
However the instructions to voters in this election are:
“Write the number 1 in the square next to the party or group of candidates which is your first choice.
You can then write the number 2 next to your second choice, and so on for as many parties or groups of candidates as you like. You do not need to number every square.”
This effectively encourages first past the post voting rather than having this as a savings provision for those who can’t read instructions to number all squares ATL, or at least sufficient for the number of seats as per the Senate instructions.
I suspect that in this election there wil be at least a whole quota of votes that will exhaust (be waisted). The informal vote under FPV would surely not be this high.
COMMENT: Only a third of LC votes had between party preferences in 2022. When only three candidates remained in 2022, 1.2 quotas worth of votes had exhausted. Between the point when 9 vacancies had been filled and the end of the count when the fifth Labor candidate and lead One Nation candidates were declared elected, 76.0% of preferences distributed had exhausted. When only four candidates remained, the candidates were Labor, One Nation, Family First and Liberal Democrats. If more voters had given preferences then perhaps the last two seats would have gone two right candidates rather than one left and one right. But I suspect with full preferential voting, the flows would not have been enough to change the result that occurred under the existing system.
Nobody will support full preferential voting for upper houses. The informal vote would go up above 10% as it was for the Senate 50 years between 1934 and 1984. What is the purpose of having people stand around in polling places filling in 50 preferences, the lower half of which would be essentially random. And think of the queuing waiting for people to laboriously fill in all these numbers. It will not happen.
Ideally a system similar to the Senate or that used for ACT (Hare-Clark), where a minimum number of preferences are specified on the ballot paper instructions will encourage more voters to use preferences, even though the official formality rules only require a single ‘1’ only vote as a minimum.
I understand the argument, but the new voting system for parties ATL, which you were a prime mover in expediting, has improved since the bad old days. Removing the GVTs was the most significant step in reducing the number of parties contesting the LC. No longer will micro parties be able to game the system and harvest a lottery win!
In this election there are 13 (?) parties contesting the LC. Most people would be capable of indicating 13 preferences. In fact, FPV is required in the LA ballot and, as your data shows, the majority of these have 8-9 candidates. Many will vote according to party recognition rather than for specific candidate.
I fear that the pendulum has swung from the sublime (50 candidates – 1934 and 1984) to the ridiculous (1 – with the inherent flaws of GVT). It has settled in the middle with the current OPV system that trades Informal votes against exhausted votes for manual voting methods.
With computer assisted voting, as was at my polling booth, it is possible that only a formal vote could be submitted. Combined with FPV we could reach nirvana. Zero informality. Zero exhaustion. Every part of every vote counts!
By virtually encouraging just vote 1 “Write the number 1 in the square next to the party … You do not need to number every square.” we sway back towards the ridiculous end and lose the advantages of preferential voting, which is rightly the envy of the world.
COMMENT: There are 16 groups with ATL squares. It may be the case that voters can successfully complete 16 squares, but are they in any way meaningful preferences? In trying to drive down the exhausted vote, you just introduce a lot of random preferences which don’t alter the result. Six preferences are suggested for the Senate and it makes very little difference to the result. Increasing the number of preferences isn’t going to make much difference.
What the new Senate system has done is make the system more proportional to first preferences. You don’t make it more proportional with more preferences. And remember that most of the exhausted votes end up in the spare quota that doesn’t elect a member.
What FPV does deliver is the ability to discriminate between parties. If people were to just vote 1 for a minor party that does not trouble the scorers, their vote would exhaust as soon as their preferred minor is eliminated in the count and will not contibute to the election of a member. For instance voters to the right of centre may ‘prefer’ Labor to the Greens. If the final contest was between two parties on the left, their vote would not contribute to this contest, albeit both parties would have been towards the bottom of their preferences. (Similarly for voters on the left who may want to discriminate between right and far-right parties).
Party HTVs typically only recommend preferences for either the right or the left depending on their political hue. No discrimination is made between bad and worse. If bad and worse were in the final contest the vote would not have reflected the ‘real’ will of the voters which surely is the intent of every election.
The media is reporting that One Nation is not directing preferences?
But there was a reference to parties lodging a “saving vote”?
Antony: What does this means?
COMMENT: When ATL voting was introduced for the Senate in 1984, it caused a lot of confusion at the 1984 Federal election. There was a record House informal vote with a massive increase in voters copying the Senate method and only marking one square.
South Australia copied the ATL system for the 1985 state election but introduce a savings provision. If a party lodged a ticket for a lower house seat, and a vote was cast with incomplete preferences, the vote could be ‘saved’ and the ticket preferences applied to the incomplete vote.
Most of the saved votes are usually for Labor and Liberal candidates whose preferences are not normally distributed. The number of votes involved is about 2-4% of the total vote, with more than half of those only counting for first preferences.
It is illegal to advocate a ‘1’ only vote on a how-to-vote though Vote 1 and number all the squares is permitted. This provision is designed to save votes, not be a form of ticket voting.
It baffles me that the Liberal Party in SA will preference ON over Labor while ON has given no such commitment. I am wondering do they want to come in third in the election? ON as Official Opposition? I cannot for the life of me fathom the strategy behind this. I can’t imagine adherence to the HTV by Liberal voters will be much about 50% to ON.
At this point I am seeing 35 Labor seats, 5 One Nation seats, 2 Liberal seats and 5 “Other.” That is being generous at this point.
How that affects the Senate voting is a good question. Are we going to see record exhaustion?
COMMENT: I presume you are referring to the Legislative Council. Only one third of ballot papers are completed with more than a ‘1’ ATL vote.
I presume in the absence of One Nation recommending preferences, the Liberal Party is hoping to get a message across to One Nation voters that they should complete preferences favouring the Liberal Party over Labor. It’s not all about what’s on a how-to-vote.
New visitor here. Interesting site. Question: ECSA are saying that all squares must be numbered on the Green Ballot Paper for your vote to count. All the ON how to vote cards have only their candidate with a 1 in it. Is it true that all must be numbered? If so, why would ON print the How to vote cards in that manner?
COMMENT: Because they are saying they have made no preference deals and are making no recommendation. I know what has been registered which includes a statement about filling in all the squares, but One Nation are using smaller text to say that than others who do not recommend preferences. It will be interesting to know whether One Nation ends up with a high rate of ‘1’ only votes.
South Australia has a special ‘savings’ provision to keep ballot papers with incomplete preferences in the count. The vote is allocated preferences from a registered ticket. One Nation has chosen to lodge split preferences between Labor and Liberal, tickets where 50% of preferences go to each party, though there are some tickets where an Independent benefits. So if people just vote ‘1’, they will count but preferences between the major parties will be split.
After much searching on the ECSA web site to find the HTVs, I also was alarmed to see the One Nation ticket. For those who don’t read the fine print, it certainly encourages just vote ‘1’. You mentioned a split ticket has been lodged that split preferences between Labor and Liberal. Are these published on line for public viewing? It smacks of GVT!\
COMMENT: They are not published. They are a savings provision, not meant to be an option for voting. About 3% of votes are saved by them, most of them first preferences for candidates whose preferences are never distributed.
I suspect that there will be a lot more than 3% of One Nation votes that will be saved by this provision. I assume that this split ticket could have directed preferences to whomever PHON chooses? The voter would be completely unaware of where their vote ended up!
Obviously “The Electoral Commissioner is satisfied this poster is in the prescribed form”!
COMMENT: The how-to-vote meets the requirements of the Electoral Act. About 3% of otherwise informal votes end up beeing kept formal by this savings provision. Most of the saved votes are for candidates whose preferences are either not distributed or do not need to be distributed to determine a winner. As One Nation said they were doing no preference deals with major parties, the lodged saving tickets corresponds to what they said they would do. If it had not you can be sure there would have been an outcry. Votes that would otherwise have been informal are saved by this provision. More votes end up in the count and the small numbers involved have little impact on the result. Almost every savings provision ticket matches the how-to-vote recommendation.
I suggest you read the background paper “Voting tickets – a unique feature of South Australia’s lower house elections” which you can find on this page.
Thanks AnTony. The link didn’t work but I managed to find the paper. It says “Preferences
on this ballot paper will accordingly be allocated according to Green’s voting tickets.”
You sure do have some influence in this space!!
I anticipate that there will be a number of 3 (or 4) corner contests in this election and if we get a deluge of One Nation votes that the Returning Officers have to first test against this savings provision, as I expect, we could be waiting weeks before we have a result in some seats (circa. Calwell).
COMMENT: 90% of the saved votes are 1-onlys. It is not hard to check.