Some thoughts on voting for the 2008 ACT election.

Jonathon, well done and thank you for that interview with Phillip Green.

If voters actually understand how the Hare-Clarke voting system works …

aah, well then, there’s ya problem right there… : ) pretty astute picks – do you have a quid on it?

PantsMan said :

I just hope Steve Pratt is re-elected. If he’s not, he will probably start some type of underground (read spy) anti grafitti group!

Me too, but not for the reasons you detailed! I believe that Steve, despite being much-maligned on this site and elsewhere, is a really decent man who is in politics for all of the right reasons.

Jonathon Reynolds said :

On the subject of voting… I undertook a video interview with Phillip Green the Electoral Commissioner this morning.

He gives an interesting (apolitical) insight in to our local voting system, the power it gives the individual and democracy in general.

If I can get it edited and up in time strongly suggest you view it before casting your vote.

The video is now available for viewing from the CanberraVotes.com website
http://www.canberravotes.com/2008/10/mr-phillip-green-act-electoral-commissioner-17-october-2008/

@JB: you may want to embed the video in the story header.

I just hope Steve Pratt is re-elected. If he’s not, he will probably start some type of underground (read spy) anti grafitti group!

DO NOT VOTE FOR MAJORITY GOVERNMENT!!!!!

If you do you will gt arrogant pricks. Vote Green 1st.

If the Greens hold the balance of power, that will mean more accountability.

But Jonathon – you forgot JB’s crumpets…!

Seriously though, IMHO I don’t think one can predict quotas, and Mulchay should be dead in the water.

Here is my prediction for the election outcome, order of election and guesstimate on first preference votes expressed in terms of a quota

Ginninderra:
1. Stanhope(ALP), 1.5 Quota
2. Porter(ALP), 0.75 Quota
3. Dunne(LIB), 0.3 Quota
4. Hunter(GRN), 0.3 Quota
5. Parton(IND), Myers(LIB) or Peebles(ALP) 0.25 Quota

– If my predictions are correct on Quota figures for Stanhope and Porter primary vote quotas then most likely 5th candidate to be Peebles
– Parton is in the running for the last seat based on name recognition alone – just under 1 in 5 Canberrans know him by name/radio voice.
– Myers selected on the basis of name recognition base on her previous tilt at the Senate as the 2nd candidate for Gary Humphries where there was fair emphasis on Belconnen suburbs.

Brindabella:
1. Smyth(LIB), 1.0 Quota
2. Hargreaves(ALP), 1.0 Quota
3. Gentleman(ALP), 0.5 Quota
4. Pratt(LIB) 0.3 Quota
5. Doszpot(LIB) or undetermined(ALP) 0.25 Quota

– It will be interesting to see the level of influence of the CPR group against ALP candidates in this electorate.
– I am predicting that votes for Bresnan(GRN) and Jeffrey(CAP) will collapse in this electorate.

Molonglo:
In order of Election
1. Seselja(LIB), 1.0 Quota
2. Gallagher(ALP), 0.75 Quota
3. Rattenbury(GRN), 0.5 Quota
4. Corbell(ALP), 0.5 Quota
5. Barr(ALP), 0.3 Quota
6. Burke(LIB), 0.25 Quota
7. Mulchay(CAN) or Hettinger(ALP) or undetermined(LIB) 0.25 Quota

– I am nominating Burke on the basis of name recognition.
– Barr is likely to do relatively well as groups targeting him as the Education minister (for school closures) are not Molonglo based
– In reality the last two seats in Molonglo are very hard to pick. Burke is in effect defending her seat from her running mates.
– Whilst polling might show otherwise Mulchay may do well on the basis that he comes across well as a good “old school” politician and he is likely to secure the older voter conservation preferences ahead of Liberal party candidates.

Although there is supposedly a large anti Stanhope sentiment, depending on how the preferences actually flow it is not inconceivable we could end up very close to majority government yet again (if ALP gets 3 seats each in Brindabella and Ginninderra and hold their current seats in Molonglo). Either way I predict that the ALP will ultimately hold at least one more seat than the Liberals. The minor parties, for the most part, may end up being little more than background noise in the overall equation.

If voters actually understand how the Hare-Clarke voting system works I am predicting that we may see a significant increase in “short preference” voting. This is where voters will mark only the candidates they genuinely want to see in the Assembly and leave the remained of the ballot sheet candidate boxes blank (un-preferenced)

These predictions do not reflect my personal voting… and if I’m wrong… who cares – the actual result will be set by the voters at the close of polls at 6pm Saturday night!

I’ve enjoyed the coverage, too. Well balanced. Sure is better than the Crimes!

I’ll see you all Sat evening at some point after 6pm.

Make those politicians fear us.

After watching the Greens on Stateline, I find these suggestions of the Ratt aspiring to deputy chief ministership a bit hard to take seriously. I’m sympathetic toward them, but I think they need more sophistication, more depth of talent and a calculator before I could consider voting for them.

I’m in favour of scrapping this crap system and instead a local council style set up, with members representing defined burroughs (2-4 suburbs). –

I missed stateline, bugger. I suspect that Stanhope hasn’t seen much of his garden or the dirt in quite a long time.

Probably a first – has anyone ever seen a politician giggling while attempting to improve the state of a colleague’s hair during a pre-election interview – hands on? Bizarre. They were behaving like tweenie schoolgirls. Rattenbury looked decidedly unimpressed. You would never seen that sort of self-conscious, asinine behaviour on the part of the competent, wonderful Kerry Tucker. I’m sure that the Tucker legacy is still giving the Greens a good proportion of the goodwill they benefit from.

I thought the Greens looked terrible. The one thing that really stuck out for me in Stateline is that they didn’t bother to cost a single one of their policies. I hope they don’t even get two seats in the Assembly, never mind four.

I liked watching Stanhope in the garden, though. Absent-mindedly mucking around with the dirt in his garden like that is the most relaxed I think I have ever seen him.

johnboy said :

Stanhope in lycra and Zed in his sweats rippling his biceps didn’t balance it out for you?

If I was gay, Zed would be the man for me haha.

Speaking of gay, Mr Barr stood a lonely figure out inf front of the Canberra Centre today, looking totally out of place and not even attempting to hand out the flyers he held in his hot little hands. I also came across Julia with a G, short lady, though nice and also Zed hot on the meet and greet trail, I was met with a polite and happy “How’s it going?”. If I was a man to vote on first impressions I’d know who I’d vote for.

Anyway, I’ve already voted. Avoiding the hassels of waiting in line tomorrow by stolling through a prepoll station at about 6.30pm tonight was great.

My final guesstimate for the outcome. Labor 7, Liberal 7, Green 3 (if Stanhope and the Greens are lucky), with the 3rd greens seat probably a close race.

Stanhope in lycra and Zed in his sweats rippling his biceps didn’t balance it out for you?

I’m afraid that seeing Rattenbury’s ditzy colleagues on Stateline this evening has made me reconsider my voting intention …

Follow the link below for a list of polling places…

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/2008PollingPlaces.html

I found the Sim City Challenges were a great way to meet the candidates and definitely turned politicians into real people, plus I got to meet more of yousall

I found this invaluable http://www.canberravotes.com/2008-election-candidates/
Now I have the names to go with my numbers.

I most certainly do, thanks for pointing that out.

Johnboy, don’t you mean Louis Brandeis?!

To kick up the adblock thing again.

I am a staunch adblock supporter. Have adblock and flashblock. I hate ads ruining my internet experience especially when they are in the middle of content.

But this site is different. A few small ads at the top, not in the middle of what I’m trying to read.

So ads on here stay, and without being a premium contributor I support a local site run by an average bloke in Canberra who I have never met. I don’t adblock this site at all. 🙂

There’s no option except for voting below the line.

Vote below the line and give your last votes at the start trying to eliminate the dunderheads

But don’t lose count – nothing worse than getting to the top with 2 votes left and one candidate

Vote early and vote often

Good luck to all who have made an effort to respond to RA

TV coverage starts from 6.

We’ll be switching to the Elections ACT website in the gaps.

Credit to you all JB, Kramer and Jazz.

The big thing about RA v Times is that plenty of people can have plenty to say on stuff, and the election is about as big as stuff gets around here. We are all political watchers after all. But the paper is by nature very limited – in space and freedom.

I recently watched the Sunshine Coast Daily’s online readership positively explode in the lead-up to the local government elections there – because they positively embraced the new media. It even allowed me (from a distance) to correct some aspects of misinformation that were being plugged by a few people, put some historical information out there, and maybe even play a tiny part in getting a thoroughly deserving developer’s mate bastard booted from office.

But the online side is something I think CT will find it a lot harder to do – being part of the bigger chain will hogtie them. So RA plugs that gap very nicely thank you very much lads.

But also, there are clearly plenty of people who also come here to find out about the people, policies and stuff. Some pipe up (as above), but I’m sure plenty more lurk. For anyone who hasn’t yet decided, you can still check out the 24 Ginninderra and Molonglo candidates at least on the video of our GCC meeting to help you make your decision. Some pretty poor performances from some candidates you may well be considering voting for… And some very good shows from some you may not have considered.

And sometimes real juicy stuff leaks out via RA too. Some people try to pull dirty plays, but others are mighty frustrated with the games in their party machines and give tiny insights into what is going on behind the scenes.

I also think it is great to get together and meet the people of RA – the Sim Challenges were a great idea and showed up some of the more adventurous candidates. The banter on RA between people who’ve met each other is always a little more entertaining – the people are less likely to get personal and more likely to respond to the issues when they’ve met.

See you Saturday night.

There’s some coverage at 7:30 on ABC, but I’m not sure exactly what will be shown. With any luck Antony Green will be keeping us up to date at http://www.abc.net.au/elections/act/2008/

Will be interesting…

(On a happier note don’t forget to drop by All Bar Nun after to six to enjoy watching the Canberra electorate vaporise political careers – 86 go in, 17 come out)

So the coverage will be televised I take it? what time & what station?

My thoughts on voting tomorrow – Sausage Sangers for breakfast!

(good point, just white listed this site, again?)

Deano, JB doesnt necessarily know who are premium members of the site and who are so apologies if you feel maligned. It prob wouldnt matter either way as his views on adblocking are pretty firm & as i’d wager he’s online more than most he doesnt use it when looking at other sites either. The WordPress user management module we’re currently using is pretty primative so our premium users accounts are something that i maintain seperately.

Not knowing anything about any of these guys, can anybody tell me which candidates are not dedicated civil libertarians?

sepi said :

jonathon, does he explain the prefernce system?
i am yet to meet anyone who can tell me how it works.

Yes he does very succinctly.

Big ups to the RA team for the Sim Challenges – it was refreshing to see candidates showing themeselves out of the soundbite/roadside poster/dodgy campaign website context.

I hope it happens next time round.

Hmm – that doesn’t look very clear. Let’s try an example – say candidate x has 11,000 votes and the quota is 10,000. Instead of saying, the last 1,000 votes counted will be redistributed as the over-quota, what they do is say let’s count all the preferences of all the votes and apply that as a ratio to the 1,000. because of some intense stats stuff and an allowance for exhausted votes, only a fraction (80% from memory) of the 1,000 actually get distributed

I for one believe that this election will go down in the annals of history as one of the great philosophical battles in the history of democracy.

No matter the outcome tomorrow, we are all winners.

Deano – short answer is ‘no’

Medium length answer is that rather than determining which votes make up the over-quota it is redristributed at a fractional rate that represents all the preferences recorded in the entire bundle. In the ACT paper votes are inputted into a computer in a process called ‘the scrutiny’ which records all the preferences – thus redistributing overquotas is automated, as is redistributing eleiminated candidates. Because it takes a couple of weeks to complete the scrutiny and the Electoral Commission releases updates at the end of each day the winning candidates can change from day to day.

There is a very long answer -to the point of repeating the code used by the computer – over on Pollbludger if you’re really interested.

Deano – SNAP!

ok – i undersrand that you can number all boxes, and that if your first preference isn’t elected, then it goes to your next preference etc, until it hits someone who will get elected.

BUT – say if you and I both vote Shane Rattenbury 1, Simon Corbell 2.

Assuming Shane gets over a quota, exactly Whose preferences get used up?

eg – if my vote is counted first, does it get used up in Shanes quota and stop?
And if shane hits his quota, and then your vote (exactly the same as mine) comes in later in the counting process, does your vote progress to count towards your second preference of Simon C?

Or do both our preferences somehow get counted?

That is probably clear as mud….

I have a question

Does the combination of preferential voting and the quota system mean that the outcome of the election is determinate on the order that votes are counted?

What I mean is that if the initial votes that go to make up someone’s quota send their preferences one way and later surplus votes send their preferences a different way, doesn’t that mean that the outcome of the election is dependent on the order that the votes are counted in?

Sepi – that’s because you haven’t met me 😉
Rather than filling up the whole thread explaining it from go to whoa – are there particular questions you have?

jonathon, does he explain the prefernce system?
i am yet to meet anyone who can tell me how it works.

On the subject of voting… I undertook a video interview with Phillip Green the Electoral Commissioner this morning.

He gives an interesting (apolitical) insight in to our local voting system, the power it gives the individual and democracy in general.

If I can get it edited and up in time strongly suggest you view it before casting your vote.

Such a poor showing from the Brindabella candidates. At least I know not to vote for Burl Doble.

johnboy said :

*sigh*

advertising that you’re a thief?

I guess there’s always one.

Not a nice thing to call a premium member, thank you very much.

The morality of adblocking is better discussed over a pint tomorrow night than in an election thread.

So by all means come along tomorrow night and set me straight.

The coverage has been fun – thanks to JB and the other overlords as well as the commenters.

My thoughts on the final outcome in order of election:
Ginninderra: Stanhope, Porter, Hunter, Dunne & Watts*
Brindabella: Smyth, Hargreaves, Gentleman, Pratt & Doszpot
Molonglo: Seselja, Gallagher, Corbell, Rattenbury, Barr, Burke, Hanson*
*these final seats could go to any Lib, but these ones seem to be RA faves

8 Lib, 7 ALP & 2 Green. Greens will support a Labor government with Stanhope handing over to Gallagher mid term.

advertising that you’re a thief?

JB, I’ve read your last few posts, and I still don’t know how this would make Deano a “thief”.

I’m not saying this to be argumentative – but I think I must not understand the technicalities as to why using Adblock would make him so. Can you clarify?

But TheRA isn’t just the fruit of your labours. It’s the fruit of all our labours. The comments are where the juicy goodness lies, not necessarily the posts (and even then, a lot of posts are made by the us). Sometimes it’s durian, but that’s just life in the fruit bowl.

I’ll stop talking about fruit now.

There’s a difference between skipping an ad and automatically stripping it from the content.

Especially online where each pageview comes at a cost to us (albeit a very small one).

Basically it’s availing oneself of the fruits of anothers labour while removing the ability for them to profit by it.

Along with pretty much every web publisher we really hate it. Especially when we’ve reduced our earning potential by keeping the ads discreet and un-intrusive for the benefit of readers.

Having said that it’s not like we’re short of impressions to sell. But I’d really ask ad blockers to have a long hard think about what it is they’re doing.

I expect to be at All Bar Nun tomorrow night.

I’ll miss the SIM challenges now they have finished. Thanks for the time and effort you guys went to in putting them on. I really did get to know more candidates better that way than by any other means. I have also enjoyed meeting so many Rioters.

Apart from that, I am just glad that it will all be over tomorrow. I can’t wait to talk about bad Canberra drivers and Indidan restaurants and footballers and offal again.

: )

Aw, I didn’t expect that from you JB. Surely you’ve fast-forwarded through an ad or ten in your time? The net’s no different, and if Deano contributes through posts, then he’s giving, not leeching.

Anyways, many thanks for your excellent election coverage. It’s helped me to make up my mind.

I didn’t realise the Greens didn’t respond the questionaire at all… poor form.

*sigh*

advertising that you’re a thief?

I guess there’s always one.

But before we go further I’d like to thank the political parties that have seen fit to advertise with us.

Adblock soon fixed that!