Kevin Bonham Profile picture
Nov 12 14 tweets 4 min read
Controversy over VEC interpretations regarding how-to-vote cards for independents.

abc.net.au/news/2022-11-1…

#VicVotes
This seems unsatisfactory. Sheed v VEC (austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdo…?) found “Then number Every Box" is not sufficient but the VEC guide implies "a statement to instruct the voter
to number all the boxes." is OK?vec.vic.gov.au/-/media/3b00f7… #VicVotes
I mean, what more is Frederico supposed to do, her card already tells voters they must number all boxes *twice*, does she need to say it a third time and get her lawyer to send the VEC a copy of The Hunting Of The Snark?
Quite possibly this is what they want (it's consistent with Sheed at [35]). But if that is the case their candidate guide should say so.

Not convinced they do. Correlation <> causation. But voters who vote for teal INDs in teal seats are unlikely to stuff up anyway. (Have seen some scrutineering reports re Ryan's votes on this.)

Seeing more of this stuff so just want to make some points about informal votes to draw attention to the trickiness of informal vote rate analysis and point out that claims like this ("PROVEN to reduce informal votes") are unwarranted.

So, the informal vote rate in Kooyong fell - but only by 0.08%, a trivial decrease and at an election where the national informal rate dropped by 0.35%.

Goldstein and Indi had similar cards but their informal rates rose by 1.22% and 1.11%.
Reps informal rates have many underlying causes. They can be influenced by education levels, voting literacy levels, state electoral systems and proximity of state elections that have different systems.

But they are also influenced by candidate number changes.
Two factors that influence change in informal voting rate in a Reps seat are: 1. how much did the number of candidates increase or decrease? 2. did the number of candidates change from below 8 to 8+ or vice versa?

(Reason for 2 is votes that copy Senate instructions.)
On a regression for Vic on candidate number changes the Kooyong informal result is good (expected change was +0.5) but the other two went up more than expected (even given that they crossed the magic 8 candidate line).
Even if there had been a pattern, it could just be that teals running (not their cards) caused some voters to cast a formal vote.

There's no evidence that the use of this style of open card by teal candidates in Vic federal 22 affected the informal rate in either direction.
OK the VEC candidate handbook at page 30 contains an absolutely clearcut instruction that any HTV submitted with blank boxes gets rejected.

This in contrast is the Sheed card from 2014 which was found to be OK by VCAT.

Notwithstanding some poor wording in the checklist, the VEC's actions are consistent with the Act as interpreted by VCAT in the Sheed case.
NB Time permitting I may be doing a detailed writeup of this how-to-vote thing on my site tomorrow.

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More from @kevinbonham

Nov 12
As expressed this is a completely absurd statement by whoever said it since Labor seats going to the Greens will make absolutely no difference to who forms government and will categorically not boost the Liberals' chances - if they exist - in any way.
A more intelligent way to defend it would be to say that they were forcing Labor to fight harder to defend those seats. But even that's not all that logical since two of them looked like very serious fights anyway. #VicVotes
(Note these are only how to vote recommendations, not preferencing in the sense of the upper house, but in the case of Liberal how to votes it can make a sizeable difference. Not a huge difference since the Liberal vote in eg Northcote is barely double figures, but a few %.)
Read 4 tweets
Nov 11
#Morgan Vic (state) SMS poll (treat with a lot of caution) 57-43 to ALP (ALP 40 L-NP 29 Green 11.5 DHJP 1 UAP 0.5 Teal IND 4.5 other INDs/others 13 - suspect IND overstated here. Taken Nov 9-10
Also Morgan multi-mode Vic (state) for October was 60.5-39.5 to ALP but no breakdowns provided.

(Morgan says re the SMS one that the rise in IND parallels what they saw in federal, but actually overestimating IND /underestimating UAP cost them an excellent result.)
Release doesn't say how Morgan are doing the 2PP for that SMS poll but 57-43 is way way low on those primaries (respondent presumably); I estimate 59.5 to Labor. Also (because Morgan will never not be a mess) there is 0.5% missing from the breakdown of IND/others.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 10
My concerns about the proposed public funding model for elections were discussed today extensively in the House. (See kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2022/11/how-no… ) #politas
I have just heard Attorney-General Archer's response and my jaw is on the floor. She has claimed the ACT is different from Tasmania because the ACT has above the line voting. It does not.

#politas
Here is a ballot paper sample from the ACT's website. There is no above the line section. There has never been one in their version of Hare-Clark

elections.act.gov.au/__data/assets/…

#politas
Read 13 tweets
Nov 4
#Newspoll Vic (state) 54-46 to Labor. L-NP 37 ALP 37 Green 13 others 13
That is the first public poll from anyone inside 55-45 or with Labor not leading on primaries since June 2021 #VicVotes
#Newspoll Andrews net +7 (51-44) Guy net -20 (32-52) Better Premier (skews to incumbents) Andrews leads rather modestly 51-32.
Read 7 tweets
Nov 3
Problem is that the same reform can make the Senate more representative of Territories and less representative of Australia, because the ACT is so left-wing.
As for giving the NT six seats, at current support levels the left pretty easily wins 2-1 splits in the NT so that is just giving the left two more or less free seats. Adding 3-seat contests for the NT is a much more dangerous distortion than adding 4-seat contests.
Really, this Territory Senate seats thing is a difficult problem. The Territories should ideally have more Senate seats to provide for a better quality of representation in the Senate. But this risks distorting the Senate's current accidentally fair left-right balance.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 30
#Newspoll 55-45 to ALP
#Newspoll ALP 38 L-NP 35 Green 11 ON 6 UAP 1 others 9
#Newspoll

Albanese net +26 (59-33)
Dutton net -7 (39-46)
Better PM (skews to incumbents) Albanese leads 54-27
Read 6 tweets

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