Victorian election minus one day – The Poll Bludger

I’ll publish a round-up of late horse race news tomorrow evening, but for this post I will focus on the details of tomorrow evening – in particular my live results system, which I’m confident will survive the rigours of an especially challenging election after performing well enough during the Victorian Electoral Commission’s test the other night. For those unfamiliar with it, you can see the results from the federal election here – it features projections, probability estimates, easily navigable booth results tables which I’m pretty sure will be the only place you’ll find swings at booth level, and mapped results displays if you click the button at the bottom of the page.

Given the inordinately large number of candidates, peaking at fifteen in Point Cook and Werribee (with Daniel Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave just behind on fourteen), the progress of much of the counting tomorrow night could be very slow. The VEC is also unusually leisurely in updating its results feed only every five minutes, though I personally don’t mind this – it’s about as much time as needed to absorb each new update.

In addition to the election day booth votes, for which primary vote and two-candidate preferred counts plus first preferences for the upper house will be counted on the night, counting of pre-polls and postals for the lower house will begin tomorrow evening, with the upper house to follow over the next two days. Out-of-district pre-polls and absent votes will start entering the count on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics. View all posts by William Bowe