It can’t last, but today in Australia we still have no government. Smile!
I’m enjoying this, brief, best possible outcome. I didn’t want either side to win, and they haven’t. Give us more. :- )
Latest Tally: Libs 72 — Labor 66. Others 5. Undecided 7.
Of the undecideds — five seats are leaning to Labor, two to the Liberals. But the Liberals need four more seats to hold a majority. (Turnbull may be the new Gillard.) Counting is still only at the 80% mark in these crucial last seats, and things are close — one is only “leading” by 150 votes or so out of 80,000. This could go on all week.
Two months ago, I estimated there were at least a million votes that “don’t matter”, but there turned out to be nearly twice as many — 1.7 million Delcon / Defcon type voters out of 12 million. These are people who voted for a conservative candidate outside of the Liberal party. That’s a force that needs galvanizing…
Cory Bernardi invites people to join The Australian Conservatives –– a grassroots movement (not a political party):
“If you believe in limited government, traditional values, defending our culture and heritage, lower taxes, a stronger nation, a stronger economy and plain old common sense, then you have a lot in common with millions of others. Now is the time to gather together.
“It’s the next step in making sure our voice is never taken for granted again.”
Polls and complacency
Yet again, the pollsters missed a big shift. It could be those questions that only allow you to say Lib-Lab-Nat-Green or “other”. I hear there is a Reachtel robo-poll today hunting for numbers to suggest that people want climate change policies and renewables.
Turnbull hobbled himself. He avoided mentioning most of Abbott’s successes (like stopping the boats) and didn’t campaign on the carbon tax (because he brought one in himself). Perhaps he didn’t want to give credit to Abbott and didn’t feel he needed to because the polls were predicting the Liberal Party would win the marginals. So much for the polls?
Spend a few minutes diving into the votes recorded at booths in your area. (Click on an electorate, then scroll far down and compare percentages in each booth. Credit to the AEC for making it all so transparent.) The numbers are all over the place (look at Batman). There is no consistent swing in each booth. Even polling the 2,000 people at one booth would not predict the trend at all the others in a single seat. A pollsters nightmare?
Informal votes are down in 2016?
Quite a lot of Defcons were planning to vote informal, but it’s far from clear how many did. There were another 600,000 voters who voted informal (which means “incorrect” votes that don’t count). But back in 2013, there were even more informal votes – 740,000. These are House of Rep numbers, so the new Senate style of voting does not count.
h/t Phillipa