Tonight and in coming days, this post will publish an overall summary of the results of the 2026 Stafford state by-election in Queensland. The page will be regularly updated on election night and in the days that follow. Tonight there will also be links below to commentary on the results and more detail on the results by polling place.
Links: Result Summary | Commentary | Count Centre Summaries | Count Centre Results
- Last Update – Wednesday, 27 May 2026, 15:15 AEST
- Enrolment – 41,397
- First Preferences – 81.6% of enrolment
- After Preferences – 81.5% of enrolment
Labor RETAIN Stafford
Two-Candidate Preferred (2CP)
- Preference counts have been reported from all count centres.
- Vote and Vote % columns based on actual 2CP counts.
- The swing column shows the change in 2CP % compared to the overall result of the last election.
- By-election preferences are flowing 71.2% to Labor, 28.8% to LNP.
First Preference Count
- First preference counts have been reported from all counting centres.
- Vote and Vote% columns are actual counts. Candidates are listed in descending vote order.
- Change column compares Vote% by candidate/party with Vote% at the last election.
- Change values only appear for candidates/parties that contested the last election.
Preference Flows
|
|
Prefs to Labor |
Prefs to LNP |
| Candidate Name |
Party |
Votes |
Pct |
Votes |
Pct |
| Jacqueline Verne |
Legalise Cannabis |
574 |
60.0 |
382 |
40.0 |
| Damian Smart |
Independent |
224 |
36.7 |
386 |
63.3 |
| Daniel Selff |
Libertarians |
130 |
35.3 |
238 |
64.7 |
| Liam Parry |
Independent |
1018 |
81.9 |
225 |
18.1 |
| Jess Lane |
The Greens |
4125 |
86.5 |
643 |
13.5 |
| Lucy O’Brien |
Animal Justice |
426 |
62.7 |
253 |
37.3 |
| Alan Denaro |
Family First |
185 |
24.2 |
579 |
75.8 |
| Total Preferences |
|
6682 |
71.2 |
2706 |
28.8 |
Thanks as always Antony for your timely updates and analysis.
There’s very little live coverage of this by election, thankfully you’re there as always which is more than enough.
Agree 100%
Here here
I agree! It’s sadly notably that with 3 by-elections in a month, the media only appears interested in focused reporting of the by-elections involving ONP.
I understand the rise of ONP is topical and demands focus.
However it will be interesting to see the level of news coverage tomorrow and whether Casey Briggs is on Insiders, and if Insiders or other news services will discuss optional preferential voting
COMMENT: I expect Stafford to get the same amount of national coverage as the Nepean by-election two weeks ago. It is very hard to make a national story out of a state by-election.
It’s amazing that without One Nation running there is a lot less interest in this one.
Antony provides the best coverage and predictions of all elections in which I have taken an interest over several decades. He was the only reason it was worth watching the ABC over the past decade or so. So pleased he is still providing a comprehensive coverage.
What a close election. Thanks for all your hard work Antony. Its appreciated. I couldn’t find any tv coverage at all.
Looks very close, particularly for a Labor seat.
Absolutely and understandably
If only we had “First past the post”…..
COMMENT: Now to everyone reading this comment, please don’t start a debate on the subject. I have no intention of moderating it.
First past the post is fine so long as there is another election between first and second if neither of them reaches 51%.
Having someone win with something like 28%, as first past the post, is not the best way to do things
at which point you might as well just leave it as preferences and save going back to the polls………….
Labor can’t win a seat without multiple preferences!
What do you think “The Coalition “ is all about? It has been an electoral con job for decades.
Thanks for your effort. We were surprised at the lack of coverage too; even ABC News 24 didn’t have the results as a ticker. For whatever reason, ABC had better things to rebroadcast. Sad; would have been interesting discussion on what the votes meant.
Thanks Antony! Should we expect Chermside Sth Prepoll to report tonight?
COMMENT: I’m told they started counting it AFTER finishing the Stafford EVC. No doubt an issue with either space or staff. So it may be a while.
Normally as a West Oz I would have no interest in a QLD by election. That’s why the ABC don’t have coverage. This is from the days of 2 party politics. Things are so volatile at the minute i even find myself dipping into Reform and the Greens results in the UK. So Antony lucky we have you for Nosey Parkers like me.
Libs are unlikely to get much of a preference flow. Unlikely they can claw back.
COMMENT: The preference flows won’t change much. The issue is whether the LNP will have a good enough first preference result in the Chermside South EVC to close the gap.
I am very happy we have preferential voting. There is nothing wrong about winning via preferences. It gives people an opportunity to have a protest vote but still get a reasonable result.
Totally agree.
But that’s not It’s purpose. The purpose is to deliver a member that best aligns with the majority of the electorates politcal views.
Yes. Its quite perfect. To put it another way, it captures “the vibe”.
The LNP STILL doesn’t know how to show voters the Labor & Green coalition, as, just like Stafford results shows, Labor wouldn’t have one the seat without Green flowing preferences.
The advantage of Australia’s two-party-preferred vote is the opportunity for all Australian voters to have an opinion on every party up for election. The winning candidate will always be the one most preferred by the voters of an individual electorate.
No votes are wasted – if a voter’s first choice is not selected, the other preferences will still be considered for election. Voters have more opportunity to express their political opinion by voting for minor parties and independent candidates.
Preferential voting in Australia gives people the chance to say who they want to win the election and equally importantly who they DONT want. Voting results will always accurately reflects the majority of electorates wishes.
Thanks for the summary of the election results. Are you able to tabulate the 3CP flows. I tried to do this on the ECQ’s figures from the 2024 and there were interesting flows to the Greens candidate which contradicted the general narrative left/right political spilt.
COMMENT: You can’t get a three-candidate preferred count until the preference distribution is published. That will be towards the end of next week.
The LNP STILL doesn’t know how to show voters the Labor & Green coalition, as, just like Stafford results shows, Labor wouldn’t have one the seat without Green flowing preferences.
COMMENT: Voters decide preferences, not parties. The Greens didn’t recommend preferences but as is usually the case, Greens voters overwhelmingly choose Labor over Coalition parties. But under optional preferential voting more Greens voters exhaust preferences which is why the Crisafuli government is considering returning Queensland electoral law to optional preferences.
In theory optional preferential will work however its always the naive response every time the Libs lose for someone to bleat about the preferences system because they imagine they would have won the seat on first past the post. If FPP doesnt result in a 50.1% majority though there is generally a run off election between the two highest polling candidates. This requires a further polling day, a lot more expense, an extension of the campaign period, a longer commitment from volunteers and no guarantee that the leading candidate will win anyway. If this had been used at this Stafford by election Labor would like STILL have won as Green strongly favoured Labor and would have preferred them over Libs meaning we end up with the exact same result. First past the post wont save the Libs if the vote isnt there in sufficient numbers (50.1%). People dont seem to realise that the current preferential system effectively allows for FPP on large margin seats and then a run off second poll on close ones all within one ballot paper under the current system and requires only one day and one vote to get a result. It is efficient, cheaper, faster, and pretty much ends up with the same result as a FPP with a runoff election, its a winner and needs to stay.
Many thanks for providing this incredible coverage Antony. Really amazing resource.
Is it really a win when your primary has dropped 15% or 1/3 in less then 2 years? Labor only won thanks to the pole position and the Donkey voters. Oh and the Green and extremeist left preferences, Liam Parry wont be running again once he gets convicted.
COMMENT: Yes it is a win. And that one fact, whatever the reason, will change how the result is treated in news stories next week. If Labor had lost there would have been days of leadership stories. There still may be such stories this week, but the binary win or lose decision made by the voters changes the focus for next week, rightly or wrongly.
Not a ringing endorsement for the ALP, Greens or LNP as they lost 9.2% combined to other.
Long-time lurker, Antony thanks heaps for your work over the years. I’ve always wondered why there’s a hyperfocus on the changes in % first prefs, without considering the number of candidates vying for the same seat. Stafford had had 5 candidates in 2024 (hopefully Wikipedia is accurate) and 9 this go. Even if people were equally as satisfied with the majors as they were 2 years ago, surely that’d lead to some erosion in the % first prefs as there’ll be some votes directed towards the other candidates? (Wonder whether there’s an easy way to account for this–5PP? :D)
1. It is naive to suggest the highest first preference candidate was somehow cheated, and fails to recognise the superiority of preferential voting. If the Greens didn’t exist, most of their votes would have gone to Labor anyway. Same result.
2. Many smart voters deliberately put lesser candidates ahead of their favoured major party to stop them getting too smug.
3. You only need to look at the US to see how first past the post degenerates democracy into two toxic parties that win by discrediting the other party, rather than on their own merits.
COMMENT: I think your comment about the US is not correct. If you have criticism of simple majority voting the better comparison is the UK where candidates at the recent local government elections were elected with very low votes. The US system has two institutionally entrenched that exist as part of the electoral structure. There is an argument that preferential voting may improve primary elections but when it comes to general elections there are really only two candidates on the ballot paper most of then time.