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ABC News
2 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Which candidates might miss out thanks to Tasmania's Hare-Clark vote counting system
The long wait for a final result continues after Tasmania's state election 10 days ago. We know the Liberals will be the biggest group in the new Tasmanian Parliament, with at least 14 seats out of 35. Labor has 10 seats and the Greens five, while there are four independents. With vote counting set to continue using Tasmania's Hare-Clark system, here are some of the big questions that will be answered by the end of the week. Depending on how the counts go, we may be waiting until Saturday for an answer. Tasmanian Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey says the distribution of preferences will start on Tuesday afternoon, once the deadline for postal votes has passed and the last batch is received. Before that, there's some final checking and all the votes from each booth are combined. They'll also start preparing for the first round of distributions by sorting the second preferences of those candidates who polled more than a quota. "Where you have something like Mr Rockliff, who has so many first preferences, all his ballot papers are thrown for count two," Mr Hawkey said. "They will sort of do the movement of those ballot papers, looking at every count two on every one of these ballot papers, and that'll be physically moved on Monday." For local government elections, the Tasmanian Eelectoral Commission (TEC) uses a data entry system that computerises the distribution of preferences. It is hoped that system will be in place by the next state election. "What that will mean is we should be able to get a result pretty much on that Tuesday afternoon," Mr Hawkey said. With around 50 per cent of the vote, the Liberals are set to end the count with four seats in Braddon, with Jacqui Lambie Network turned independent MP Miriam Beswick, who ran as a Nationals candidate this time around, losing her seat. Jeremy Rockliff has topped the poll statewide, with two and a half quotas. That will be enough to carry three of his party mates across the line with him, including former federal Liberal MP Gavin Pearce. Incumbent MPs Felix Ellis and Roger Jaensch are the two next best placed Liberals. ABC chief election analyst Casey Briggs said while Mr Rockliff's preferences were expected to flow strongly to the incumbents, Giovanna Simpson wasn't totally out of the count. "The only reason we have a small amount of caution is because his surplus is so big and because Giovanna Simpson performed quite well on preferences in last year's election," he said. According to Mr Briggs, the electorate of Bass is "one of the most complicated" in recent memory. The Liberals will hold their three seats, Labor is set to hold its two, and the Greens one. "That's six of the seats, but then the surpluses for every other party are sitting somewhere between 0.2 and 0.4 of a quota." Whichever candidates can accumulate preferences and outlast their competitors will take a Steven Bradbury-esque win. It means that while Labor pulled only 2.2 quotas — and Jess Greene and Geoff Lyons are still in a contest to become the party's second MP in the electorate — it may still be able to win a third. Compare that to Franklin, where the Liberals won around 2.7 quotas, but are destined for two seats. Mr Briggs also said Bridget Archer's strong vote may complicate things for the Liberals. The former federal MP has more than 1.5 quotas, but due to her high profile there's a chance some of her vote may "leak" to other candidates, rather than stay within the Liberal ticket. "It's possible there are people in Bass that have voted for Bridget Archer, but not other members of the Liberal Party ticket," Mr Briggs explained. "That would actually have the effect of bringing down the Liberals vote in that seat, and it could make it harder for them to stay ahead of other candidates," he said. The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SSF) remains the firm favourite chance of picking up its first ever seat in Lyons, according to Mr Briggs. But with the party's Carlo di Falco sitting on just over half a quota, Mr Briggs said it was not locked in. "His primary vote has fallen a little bit, as we expected, as more postal votes have been counted and out of division, pre-polls and other non-election day votes have been counted," he said. If the SFF fails, the Liberals' Stephanie Cameron may have a chance — she's around 0.2 of a quota behind. Labor's vote tanked in Franklin, with a near 5 per cent swing against the party and leader Dean Winter failing to secure a quota. The ABC has called two seats for them though, with first-term MP Meg Brown best placed to secure the second seat. But she will have to hold off high-profile candidate and Unions Tasmania boss Jess Munday, who she leads by around 1,000 votes. With the Liberals holding their two Clark seats and Marcus Vermey topping the poll for the party, it means he's set to topple either Madeleine Ogilvie or Simon Behrakis. At this stage, Mr Behrakis remains ahead of Ms Ogilvie by around 1,000 votes. "It's not a done deal just yet," Mr Briggs said. "We will need to see some of those lower-placing Liberal candidates excluded to be sure of that." This was Marcus Vermey's third campaign in the last 16 months, having unsuccessfully contested last year's state election and May's Legislative Council election — the long runway helping him get over the hump. Mr Briggs said the Hare-Clark voting system meant incumbents could be vulnerable to a popular outsider, with voters able to avoid certain candidates but still stick with their favoured party. "The Tasmanian electoral system requires candidates to build their own profiles, have good standing with the electorate, and be out there connecting with voters and actively campaigning," he said. "You can't coast along on your party's name because that makes you vulnerable to being defeated by a more popular member of your own party."
ABC News
13-07-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
How not to stuff up your vote at the Tasmanian election this month
How do I fill in my ballot paper? What happens if I draw pictures on it? Can I number every box? With yet another state election looming, these questions are again at the forefront of Tasmanians' minds. As politicians and political hopefuls scramble together their campaigns ahead of the upcoming poll, the authority that runs it has been working on a campaign of its own. Tasmania leads the country in casting informal votes — votes that do not meet the rules and are not counted towards the election result. At the 2024 state election, 6.31 per cent of voters cast informal votes, up from 5.13 per cent at the 2021 poll. The increase in the informal vote has prompted the Tasmanian Electoral Commission to ramp up its efforts to educate people on how to make their vote count. Some probably are, but the TEC's analysis of informal ballots papers from the 2024 state election found while some were deliberate, most of them appeared to have unintentional mistakes. More than 9,500 votes were deemed intentionally informal, compared with 13,895 that appeared unintentional. Tasmanian Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey said ballot papers classified as intentionally informal are those left blank or have messages or comments, rather than those that show an attempt to fill out candidate boxes. Thanks for asking — here are the rules you need to follow. Numbers. Don't be like the 4,527 Tasmanians whose vote didn't count last year because they used ticks and crosses. That figure has been steadily on the rise since the TEC began tracking informal votes in 1992. The numbers can even be written in a language other than English, as long as your vote includes numerals from one to seven and they are legible. A minimum of seven. You have to write a number in at least seven candidate boxes, but you can number up to every box with your preferences. At last year's election, Tasmania's House of Assembly increased from 25 members to 35. In our multi-member Hare-Clark electoral system (see the video explainer for that below), it meant we moved from electing five members in each electorate to electing seven members in each. It changed how voters needed to fill out their ballot papers, from numbering a minimum of five boxes to needing to number at least seven. According to the TEC, that change appears to have contributed to the increase in the informal vote last year. "Where there were columns with less than seven candidates, there was a higher number of people who voted in those columns that did not go on to seven," Mr Hawkey said. So, on our mock ballot paper, even if you're a devoted fan of Team Marsupial, because that party only has five candidates you'll need to number at least two others from different columns to make your vote formal. Ask the friendly polling booth staff for another ballot paper and start again. Most of the unintentional informal ballots last year were from people making errors in their numbering. The common mistakes were missing numbers from the one to seven sequence, repeating a number or writing some numbers but no first preference. "We have seen where if we call the formality rules a sequence of numbers from one to seven, we're seeing that that gets broken, either because there's a number missed or a number repeated," Mr Hawkey said. It won't count — your vote needs to be anonymous. You should also fold your ballot paper before putting it in the box, to help keep it a secret. Perhaps surprisingly, yes, you can! While adding artistic flair isn't necessarily encouraged, it's not against the rules, as long as your numbers remain legible. "Over the years, we've seen a lot of interesting artwork on ballot papers, there's the traditional ones that I'm sure people know what I'm thinking about," Mr Hawkey said. "But we see some lovely artwork at different times.
