south australia

2026 South Australian Election Preview

The Labor Party is set for a landslide victory at this weekend’s South Australian election. Yet despite its forgone result, the election is set to dominate national political debate in its aftermath. Not because of who will win, but rather over who will finish second.

The Labor government of Peter Malinauskas was first elected in 2022, winning a sweeping victory that added Steven Marshall to the list of his state’s one term Liberal Premiers.

Since coming to office, Malinauskas has dominated opinion polls and his Liberal opponents. Steven Marshall retired the leadership after the 2022 election. David Spiers and Vincent Tarzia have come and gone. Now it is Ashton Hurn, just 35, female and a first term MP, who has been left with under than 100 days to restore her party’s fortunes.

Hurn has taken over a Liberal opposition that has trailed Labor in the polls for four years. Labor has gained the seats of Hurn’s predecessors Steven Marshall and David Spiers at by-elections. It is less than a year since the Federal election when Labor swept every seat in metropolitan Adelaide.

And the federal situation has worsened since. Nationally the Coalition is stalked by the spectre of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Hanson’s party has undergone a massive revival as cost-of-living pressure has grown and the Coalition has descended into fratricide and internal division.

National polling has shown One Nation matching and even outpolling the Coalition. As the first quarter of 2026 has passed, even federal Labor’s primary vote has begun to slip with the rise One Nation.

South Australian polls have not shown a similar decline in Labor support, but they have replicated the shift from the Liberal Party to One Nation. With final polls agreeing that One Nation is now polling second, the question is – who will finish second on election day?

To date all we have is opinion polls. Are the polls measuring disenchantment or voting intention? Saturday’s South Australian election may finally tell us whether One Nation’s rise is real.

So dominant is state Labor that perhaps the election is not a true test of the national mood. But it is a measure of whether the polls are right.

If One Nation finishes second in the vote, and Liberal support follows the polls and drops below 20%, then the feverish spiral of recent Coalition politics may worsen.

Are voters going to turn out and vote for One Nation in numbers not seen since One Nation’s first electoral test at the 1998 Queensland election? And will this turn into seats?

Labor is expected to dominate Adelaide, but will we see One Nation poll strongly in the city’s north where Labor’s safest seats lie. Thirty three of the state’s 47 seats are in the metropolitan area. For One Nation to poll above 20% state-wide, it must poll strongly in Adelaide even if the result sees more second places than seat wins.

The collapse in Liberal support will see the party lose further seats to Labor with another metropolitan wipe-out possible. The One Nation threat will be greatest in rural seats where the Liberal Party is already challenged by Independents. Will One Nation further damage Liberal prospects?

And if One Nation matches its polling numbers, can its vote be turned into seats?Read More »2026 South Australian Election Preview

SA2026 – Tracking the Early Vote

Update: – Friday 20 March at the end of the early voting period.

In 2026 South Australia joins the rest of Australia in removing restrictions on in-person early voting. The rule that required the Electoral Commission to encourage polling day voting has been abolished, and early votes are now cast as “ordinary” votes, the voter marked off the roll and the ballot paper placed directly into a ballot box.

Previously early votes were placed in declaration envelopes that needed to be checked against the roll before opening. That could only be done in the week after election day, preventing the counting of early votes on election night.

Almost as importantly for knowing the result on election night in 2026, South Australia will join the rest of the nation in allowing early votes to be counted and reported on election night.

Given the huge surge in early voting at the 2026 election, there is likely to be a gap between the reporting of polling place results, and the reporting of the much larger EVC counts later in the evening.

The number of early voting centres (EVCs) have been increased from 22 in 2018 to 37 in 2022 and 59 in 2026. This year there are EVCs in all 47 districts plus a second EVC in each of Adelaide, Chaffey, Flinders, Giles, Hartley, MacKillop, Mawson, Narungga, Ngadjuri, Schubert, Stuart and Wright.

And the numbers reported so far show a huge increase in early voting in 2026.

  • By the end of early voting on Friday 20 19 March, there had been 466,364 early votes cast compared to a final tally of 212,466 in 2022. 35.4% of enrolled voters have already voted at EVCs with one day of early voting to come, compared to a final tally of 16.8% in 2022. There were 93,016 pre-polls issued today. (There is a discrepancy of about 11,000 votes in my calculations from the table of early votes in the Electoral Commission website compared to the Commission’s total.)
  • Applications for postal votes have closed. 174,121 have been received, 13.2% of enrolled voters. In 2022 there were a total of 171,687 applications representing 13.6% of enrolment which is a small decline in postal voting.

  • There are graphs and more information on early and postal voting in 2022 inside the post.
    Read More »SA2026 – Tracking the Early Vote

SA2026 – Close of Nominations – Candidate Lists Released

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.

Read More »SA2026 – Close of Nominations – Candidate Lists Released

SA2026 – One Nation polling and its prospects of winning seats

The last few weeks have seen an opinion poll surge in support for One Nation at the expense of the Liberal Party.

Clearly opinion polls are measuring a real political phenomena with dramatic shifts in support on the right of Australian politics.

The question is, are the polling numbers reporting actual voting intentions, or is it just measuring between election disenchantment with the current course of politics?

We may be about to find an answer to this question with something better than an opinion poll – an actual election in South Australia on 21 March.

The working assumption for most of the last four years has been that the Labor government, led by popular Premier Peter Malinauskas, will be easily re-elected. Labor won 27 of 47 seats in 2022, has gained two more seats at by-elections since, and opinion polls have consistently shown Labor’s support higher than at the last election.

Which means that the story attracting most attention on 21 March might be the fate of the Liberal Opposition, and what a dreadful result means for the Federal Coalition.

The Liberal Party’s dreadful result in South Australia at last May’s Federal election, wiped out in all metropolitan seats, could portend an even worse fate at the state election. Recent polling has the Liberal primary vote collapsing and a surge in One Nation support. (See my previous post of the 2025 Federal result in South Australia.)

In this post I run through detail on how One Nation performed in South Australian federal seats in 2025, and in the Senate. I also look at the party’s performance in state seats at the 2022 election, including voting for the Legislative Council.

(See my previous post on the 2022 South Australian election which includes link to my publication summarising the result in both houses and including detailed analysis of lower house preference flows.)

In this post I also analyse One Nation preference flows at the 2025 Federal and 2022 state election. In complex three and four candidate contests, the order of candidate exclusion and complex preference flows could be critical.

I then run through some of the key contests at the election. In short polling says Labor will retain all its own seats and most likely make gains at the Liberal Party’s expense, possibly winning every seat in the Adelaide metropolitan area.

Which leaves how the contest will unfold in rural South Australia. Polling shows One Nation support surging at the expense of the Liberal Party and Independents. I have my suspicions that state-wide polling based on party vote overlooks that most regional SA seats will be contested by popular Independent members and candidates. I suspect some of the reported One Nation support will in fact be swept up by Independents.

Which is not to say the SA election on 21 March will prove the polls right or wrong. The polls are measuring disenchantment with politics, but perhaps are not capable of isolating the candidates that will benefit from a shifting voter mood.

For all the talk of whether there will by a preference arrangement, formal or otherwise, between Liberal and One Nation and against Labor, the presence of Independents creates more than simple binary preference contests. Options for voters to preference Independents ahead of the major parties and One Nation complicates the picture in regional seats and makes order of exclusion for preferences a complicating factor in turning party vote shares into elected members. Read More »SA2026 – One Nation polling and its prospects of winning seats

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

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

FED2025 – South Australia House Results

With a state election due in March 2026, the Liberal Party’s disastrous Federal result in South Australia is bad news for the party’s state prospects.

Since losing state government in March 2022 after just one term in office, the SA Liberal Party has gone on to lose two further state seats to the Labor government of Premier Peter Malinauskas. The by-elections in both seats had been caused by the departure of former Liberal leaders.

And now the party has suffered a 5.2% two-party preferred swing against it at the Federal election, retained just two of the state’s 10 seats, neither in Adelaide, and polled only 28.0% of the first preference vote.Read More »FED2025 – South Australia House Results

FED2025 – South Australia Senate Preference Distribution

RESULT DECLARED – The Labor Party has elected three Senators for only the second time since 1990. Labor gains a seat from the Liberal Party who are reduced to two seats. The Greens have retained the seat they have elected at every election since 2007.

The Liberal Party elected three Senators in 2019 but in 2025 its vote has slipped under two quotas. Alex Antic and Anne Ruston have been re-elected, but third Senator David Fawcett has been defeated.

Sarah Hanson-Young will be re-elected for the Greens, her party having polled close to a quota.

Labor with 2.66 quotas elect two and after preferences elected a third Senator. Sitting Senators Marielle Smith and Karen Grogan have been re-elected and Charlotte Walker has been elected as Labor’s third Senator. Walker sets a record as the youngest Senator ever elected. She turned 21 on election day.

One Nation’s Jennifer Game polled 0.37 quotas but could not close the gap on preferences. There’s more on vote trends and the distribution of preferences inside the post.Read More »FED2025 – South Australia Senate Preference Distribution

SA’s Black By-election, plus why SA needs to update how it counts early votes

(Update 20 November – I did not know when I wrote this post, but two days before polling day for the Black by-election, the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill was introduced into the Legislative Council. Its provisions include allowing the issuing Early votes as ordinary votes, a provision which allows Early votes to be counted on election night. A step forward compared to what happened at the Black by-election.)

Tonight I will be covering the Black By-election at the ABC’s election website.

As my blog receives a massive number of click throughs from Google whenever there is an election, I make sure to provide a link to where I’m reporting the results. So if you want to know Black by-election results, try the Black by-election page at ABC elections.

But it’s also worth me publishing a post on how the South Australian Electoral Act will probably prevent us knowing the winner of the Black by-election tonight.

More than 10,099 ballot papers for the Black by-election, 8,544 Early votes and 1,555 Postal votes, sit sealed in Declaration envelopes at the Electoral Commission waiting to be opened and counted. But the law prevents the SA Electoral Commission from counting these votes tonight. Counting of them cannot begin until Monday.Read More »SA’s Black By-election, plus why SA needs to update how it counts early votes