preference flows

Preference Flows at the Secret Harbour By-Election

Update after full distribution of preferences published: The Liberal Party polled 4,777 votes. During the distribution of preferences, its tally rose to 6,018 votes. When excluded, 3,549 votes transferred to One Nation. That means it is mathematically impossible for Liberal preferences to flow to One Nation at a rate higher than 74.3%. (3549/4777).

My original estimate based on flow data counted out for the Early Voting Centre was that 70.2% of Liberal preferences flowed to One Nation. While I cannot update that number from the distribution of preferences, the lower Liberal vote on polling day suggests to me the % flow of Liberal preferences to One Nation is under 70%.

A quick break from my holiday to deal with some nonsense claims made about preference flows at the Secret Harbour by-election.

In this YouTube video, Topher Field uses some weird maths to come to the conclusion that the Secret Harbour by-election saw a record flow of Liberal and right-wing candidate preference flows to One Nation.

It is a bit hard to be clear what he is saying, but I think he comes to the conclusion that once you exclude left-wing parties from the calculations, 88% of preferences from right parties, including the Liberal Party, flowed to One Nation.

This claim is rubbish and preference flow data released by the WA Electoral Commission shows that claim to be wrong.
Read More »Preference Flows at the Secret Harbour By-Election

2026 – Farrer By-election – Final Count Data Released

This morning the AEC finalised counting for the Farrer by-election with the release of detailed preference data.

It answers what I thought was a key question in the result – whether there was a difference between Liberal and National preference flows to One Nation. It was not possible to answer this question using the previously released full distribution of preferences.

Preference flow data tallies destination preferences from the primary votes for each excluded candidates to one of the final two candidates. In Farrer this data tallies preferences from ten excluded candidates to One Nation’s David Farley and Independent Michelle Milthorpe, the final pairing of candidates. Preference flow data ignores the intermediary stages published as part of the formal distribution of preferences.

The data released today reveals a difference in preference flows by supporters of the two Coalition parties . Liberal voter preference flows to One Nation were 59.0% compared to 69.1% for Nationals voters.

The flow data also reveals that One Nation’s David Farley did not need Liberal preferences to win. In the full distribution of preferences, Farley did not pass 50% until the Liberal candidate was the last excluded. Using the flow data where National preferences do not first flow through the Liberal candidate, Farley reached 50.2% on the flow of National preferences without the need for any Liberal preferences.

The question is whether the different flows tell us anything about how Liberal and National preferences would flow at a general election. In Farrer there was no Labor candidate in the final pairing. I suspect both National and Liberal preference flows to One Nation would have been higher in a final contest involving Labor rather than an Independent.

But it does suggest that Liberal preferences to One Nation will be weaker than those of National candidates. That was the case two decades ago in Queensland before the formation of the LNP. It in part reflects the different appeal of One Nation in rural electorates contested by Nationals versus the flows in urban electorates contested by Liberal candidates. One Nation polled a high enough first preference vote in Farrer for this difference not to matter. But a lower primary vote and weaker Liberal preferences would hamper One Nation hopes of winning urban seats.

Against this view, that the Liberal candidate drew top spot on the ballot paper with Milthorpe in second position suggests that the donkey vote may have played a party in the weaker Liberal preference flows to One Nation.

And it has to be remembered that preference flows from voters on the right of politics have always been weaker than from voters on the left. One Nation and the two Coalition parties rarely achieve the sorts of flows produced by the Greens in Farrer. Despite polling only 2.3% of the vote, Greens preferences flowed 91.8% to Independent Michelle Milthorpe. At general elections, Green voter preferences to Labor are consistently above 85%, a figure that the Liberal and National parties struggle to achieve from their supporters in three cornered contests.

I haven’t had time to pull apart the data by polling place, but the swing to One Nation was smaller in Albury, by far the largest regional centre in the seat. It was also in Albury where Liberal and Milthorpe support was strongest. Farley was better known in the west of the electorate where National support was also strongest. It may be the different preference flows reflect this familiarity with local candidates and the weaker One Nation support in Albury.

There’s more data on the preferences inside the post, along with an effort to graph the preferences data. Read More »2026 – Farrer By-election – Final Count Data Released

Do Green Voters Follow How-to-Votes?

Headline Summary – Strong flows of Green preferences to Labor are often cited as being due to preference “deals”. When you examine the data, the flows are due to the instinctive inclination of Green voters to put Labor second. Even in seats where the Greens recommend preferences to other candidates before Labor, many Green voters still preference Labor. It’s how Labor narrowly defeated Independent challengers in Fremantle (WA) and Bean (ACT) at the 2025 election.

One of the legacies of Senate group voting tickets (GVTs) is that political observers continue to talk about preferences as “deals”. Show and tell preference meetings and parties registering preference tickets at the same time were all part of Senate deal making with GVTs. And those deals stuck as GVTs could deliver preference flows above 90% by taking control of a voter’s ballot paper.

The GVT system was rightly abolished in 2016, ending deals that guaranteed preference flows. The Senate is now like the House where parties can only recommend preference, not direct them. With the exception of one brief experiment in Western Australia (see my previous post on the subject), lower house preferences have always been about recommendation rather than control.

What might be termed a “deal” is no more than agreement on printing preference recommendations. This can occur without an agreement as parties often have mutual self-interest in recommendations. For obvious ideological reasons, parties and candidates tend to recommend preferences within left or right blocks rather then recommend preferences across the political divide.

And whatever negotiations do occur, they have no impact unless most voters receive a party’s how-to-vote, and that voters choose to follow the recommendation. Voters can have their own views on where the preferences of their vote should flow, whatever is on a how-to-vote.

Many voters never see the how-to-vote of their first choice party, especially with minor parties. Without seeing a how-to-vote, a voter’s preferences can only match a how-to-vote by guesswork. Follow rates are always higher with fewer candidates on a ballot paper and when a how-to-vote recommendation follows an understood ideological order.

There are discussions between party representatives about preferences. But even without “deals”, it still makes sense for Labor and the Greens to recommend preferences for each other before parties of the right. It still makes sense for the Coalition and small right-of-centre parties to recommend preferences for each other before the left.

With the Coalition always attacking Labor for working with “radical left-wing Greens”, it also makes sense for the Coalition to recommend preferences for Labor before the Greens. That said, the Coalition has at times been flexible on whether to preference Labor or the Greens.

So what about the Coalition and One Nation? That may be a current hot topic, but it’s not the purpose of this post. All I’ll say for now is that strategy, tactics and practice on Coalition-One Nation preferences have changed depending on political circumstances.

This post looks at data on whether voters follow Green preference recommendations. At the 2025 Federal election, 88% of Greens preferences flowed to Labor before the Coalition. For the past 15 years, the percentage flow of Green preferences to Labor has drifted higher as shown in the chart below.

Increased candidate numbers may have removed some “random” Green votes cast as an objection to the major parties. I believe Coalition attacks on the Greens may have led to a decline in conservative voters giving a first preference to the Greens. Not being Greens helps explain why ‘teal’ Independents have had success attracting former Liberal voters.

The last time the Greens issued open how-to-votes without a recommendation to Labor was in 2010. It made little difference to the flow of preferences to Labor as I wrote about in 2011.

What about if the Greens recommended preferences for the Coalition ahead of Labor? Unfortunately data is very thin on the ground, down to a single case, the 2020 Johnston by-election for a seat in the NT Parliament. Even that was a preference throw between Labor and the short-lived Territory Alliance rather than the Country Liberal Party and was due to NT Labor policy on fracking. Preferences flows were much weaker but still 56% to Labor.

But the Greens putting Labor ahead of the Coalition does not mean Labor is placed second. As I will discuss in this post, there were several examples at the 2025 election which show that strong preference flows from Green candidates is not just a matter of voters following a how-to-vote.

If you look at Coalition-Independent contests, Green preference flows match those seen in Labor-Coalition contests. But the path by which Green preferences reached Independents was not a simple case of following a how-to-vote. And the situation is even more revealing in Labor-Independent contests with Labor retaining two seats in 2025 due to Greens voters making up their own minds on preferences.
Read More »Do Green Voters Follow How-to-Votes?

FED2025 – Independent Two-Party Preferred Preference Flow Data

The 2025 House of Representatives election was the first where more than a third of primary votes were cast for ‘Others’.

In total, minor parties and Independents recorded 33.6% of the primary vote. This was more than 31.8% for the Coalition and only one percent short of Labor’s vote.

The rise in support for ‘Others’ has changed the nature of seat contests at House elections. Elections today are far removed from the days when almost all seats finished as two-party preferred contests between Labor and the Coalition.

The word ‘classic’, which I’ve always associated with vintage cars and ice cream marketing, has been adopted by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to describe traditional Labor versus Coalition contests. Or rather the AEC calls all other combinations of final candidates after preferences as ‘Non-Classic’, which it helpfully provides a list of on its election results website. (2025 list here)

In this post I’m providing information on two-party preferred preference flows in these Non-Classic seats, data that has not previously been available. This includes preference flow splits between Labor and the Coalition from votes cast for Independents in Non-Classic contests.

Until 1983, preferences were only distributed in seats where no candidate reached 50% of the primary vote. The AEC began to conduct distributions in all seats for ‘information purposes’ in 1984. That election saw every seat finish as a two-party preferred race.

Every election since has seen at least one Non-Classic contest. And as the chart below shows, the numbers have ballooned at the last four elections.

The chart above is based on all Non-Classic contests. The last three elections have seen a particular surge in these contests involving Independents. In 2019 there were seven final counts that involved Independents, rising to 16 in 2022 and 20 in 2025.

The AEC continues to do full distributions of preferences to the final pairing of candidates in every seat. Since the 1990s it has also undertaken alternative two-party preferred counts in every seat. (Except in Bradfield in 2025 for reasons explained later.)

The AEC counts preferences in two ways. First is by conducting the legally required full distribution of preferences in every seat to produce a two-candidate preferred count. Second, the AEC tallies what are called ‘preference flows’ in every seat for both two-candidate and two-party preferred finishes. I’ll describe how preference flows are calculated inside the post.Read More »FED2025 – Independent Two-Party Preferred Preference Flow Data

Statistics on Preference Flows between the Coalition and One Nation

This post is additional information on preference flows related to a post I published earlier today, “Liberal, National and One Nation – Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?”

With One Nation’s surge in support in recent polls, pollsters and election modelers have been looking around for information on preferences. Especially for examples of how Coalition preferences might flow when excluded in contests between Labor and One Nation.

I’ve managed to pull as much information as I can from recent Federal and Queensland elections. I hope you find it useful.Read More »Statistics on Preference Flows between the Coalition and One Nation

Liberal, National and One Nation – Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?

Current opinion polling may have One Nation leading the (former) Coalition parties on primary votes, but a strong non-Labor vote may not deliver victory if split across three parties. Achieving victory also requires voters for the three parties to be disciplined and deliver a tight exchange of preferences.

Polls indicate One Nation has attracted some Labor voters, but the party’s surge is largely at the expense of the Liberal and National Parties. One Nation’s rise is a re-arrangement of support amongst parties of the right, not necessarily a shift in the centre ground of Australian politics.

Last week I explained that if One Nation is polling 22% nationwide, its vote will be above 35% in some rural and provincial seats. With such high polling, One Nation is well placed to win some seats, and based on past results, mostly at the expense of the National Party.

But for One Nation to win seats, it will require good flows of preferences in seats where the party outpolls Liberal and National candidates. And equally, Liberal and National candidates will need good flows of One Nation preferences to defeat Labor in other seats. And in many rural seats, it will be Labor preferences that decide whether Liberal, National and One Nation candidates are elected.Read More »Liberal, National and One Nation – Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?

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

Greens Preferences Flow to Labor – 2010 and 2025 Compared

Over the past three decades, the Australian Greens have grown from a collection of state-based parties overshadowed by the centrist Australian Democrats, to being the largest of Australia’s minor parties.

Once minor parties were viewed as bit-players in Australian politics, mere preference conduits for the major parties. Today the Greens are important in their own right electorally, and through elected representation play an important role in Australian Parliaments.

Greens support is now high enough to guarantee the election of a Senator from each state at half-Senate elections. Were it not for party defections, the Greens would have a permanent team of 12 Senators in the 76 seat Senate.

As was highlighted by winning four House seats at the 2022 Federal election, the Greens are now competitive in up to a dozen House seats. Despite being reduced to one House seat in 2025, the Greens remain competitive with Labor and the Coalition.

The Greens won their first general election seat in 2010 on Liberal preferences, and would have won more seats since were it not for the Coalition’s decision since 2013 to put Labor candidates ahead of the Greens on how-to-vote preference recommendations.

In this post I’m comparing two elections 15 years apart, 2010 and 2025, and examining how support for the Greens and the party’s preference flows have changed.

The 2010 election was the first where the Greens passed 10% of the vote. Led by Bob Brown, the Greens were still seen largely as an environment party, and Brown helped Labor and Julia Gillard form government after the election. Adam Bandt won the electorate of Melbourne in 2010, coming from behind to win after receiving three-quarters of Liberal preferences.

As Greens leader at the 2025 election, Adam Bandt lost his seat at an election where the Greens vote was roughly the same as in 2010. But 15 years had seen the development of differences in the geographic pattern of Greens support, and an increase in preference flows to Labor.
Read More »Greens Preferences Flow to Labor – 2010 and 2025 Compared