Would this have led to different likelihoods of election of NSW Senators, all else being equal?
At the heart of this hypothetical is that the Liberal Democrats and other controlled parties "accidentally" failing to lodge ticket preferences in Victoria that may have seen the Sex Party's Fiona Patten elected. If the Sex Party had foreseen this, would retaliation in NSW have made any difference to the result?
In each scenario, I have run the results through my Monte Carlo analysis and observed the outcome.
Scenario 0: Base Case
2 LNP, 2 ALP, 1 LDP
+
79% LNP, 1% GRN, 13% DEM, 7% Shooters and Fishers (SFP),
This is based on current votes and base case party variances.
Scenario 1: No Ticket Vote
This assumes the Sex Party would have retaliated by not submitting a Group Voting Ticket, just like LDP and its friends did not in Victoria.
Likely outcome:
2 LNP, 2 ALP, 1 LDP
+
86% LNP, 0.1% GRN, 10% DEM, 3% SFP, 0.1% PUP
Strangely, if SXP did not have any preferences and its votes were assumed to be equally captured by other parties in proportion to their primaries, this would have slightly hindered currently minimal outside chances of election that DEM and SFP currently have, in turn increasing the likely election of Arthur Sinodinos.
Scenario 2: Sex Party puts LDP last
This scenario is getting to the heart of the comment I received the other day - were SXP preferences necessary for the election of the LDP candidate?
Likely outcome:
77% LNP, 4% GRN, 13% DEM, 6% SFP
2 LNP, 2 ALP, 1 LDP
+77% LNP, 4% GRN, 13% DEM, 6% SFP
This scenario is very similar to the first two outlining that SXP preferences alone made little difference to the outcome, and certainly not any difference to the election of LDP.
Scenario 3: Sex Party puts LDP last, and encourages other Left parties to do likewise
This scenario is quite unlikely as it assumes a "left wing bloc" of parties acting together when it seems that minor parties acted together and cross-preferenced without too much consideration of, gosh, ideology!
But this is the extreme example - what difference could the Sex Party have made had it known it was going to get dudded in Victoria?
For the purposes of this scenario, I have altered the preferences of the following parties to give a big "110" to the LDP:
-Pirate
-Animal Justice
-Sex
-HEMP
-Wikileaks
All of these parties are fiercely independent so we should not presume they could be controlled... But assume they could...
Likely outcome:
2 LNP, 2 ALP
+ (5th spot)
90% LDP, 10% BTA
+ (6th spot)
17% LNP, 62% GRN, 12% DEM, 9% SFP
BTA is the Bullet Train of Australia Party! Yes, we could have had another mini-micro being elected, this time with a vote of 0.21%, even less popular than the Sports Party in WA.
Scenario 4: "Normal" LDP vote (Difference if SXP preferences LDP last)
This is testing whether or not SXP preferences ever could have made the difference to elect LDP to a position or alternatively to deny LDP. For the purposes of this scenario, I have adjusted LDP's vote down to 2% and adjusted the LNP vote up by the same amount. Implicit in this is the assumption that 77% of LDP voters meant to vote Liberal but got mistaken. Oops!!
Firstly, I ran the model with submitted preferences
Likely outcome:
3 LNP, 2 ALP
+
42% GRN, 57% SFP, 1% LDP
When I rerun the model with SXP preferencing LDP last, the 6th spot breaks 48% GRN, 52% SFP. This implies that SXP preferences would have, in this instance, made only a small difference to the likelihood of LDP election.
Summary
The question was: Did SXP preferences result in the election of LDP in NSW? The answer is an unambiguous NO.
However...
This is because of the extremely high primary vote of LDP and, to a lesser extent, its strong preferences from elsewhere.
2 LNP, 2 ALP
+ (5th spot)
90% LDP, 10% BTA
+ (6th spot)
17% LNP, 62% GRN, 12% DEM, 9% SFP
BTA is the Bullet Train of Australia Party! Yes, we could have had another mini-micro being elected, this time with a vote of 0.21%, even less popular than the Sports Party in WA.
Scenario 4: "Normal" LDP vote (Difference if SXP preferences LDP last)
This is testing whether or not SXP preferences ever could have made the difference to elect LDP to a position or alternatively to deny LDP. For the purposes of this scenario, I have adjusted LDP's vote down to 2% and adjusted the LNP vote up by the same amount. Implicit in this is the assumption that 77% of LDP voters meant to vote Liberal but got mistaken. Oops!!
Firstly, I ran the model with submitted preferences
Likely outcome:
3 LNP, 2 ALP
+
42% GRN, 57% SFP, 1% LDP
When I rerun the model with SXP preferencing LDP last, the 6th spot breaks 48% GRN, 52% SFP. This implies that SXP preferences would have, in this instance, made only a small difference to the likelihood of LDP election.
Summary
The question was: Did SXP preferences result in the election of LDP in NSW? The answer is an unambiguous NO.
However...
This is because of the extremely high primary vote of LDP and, to a lesser extent, its strong preferences from elsewhere.
Had the Sex Party taken other "left" parties with them in their anti-LDP crusade, this would only barely have affected the likelihood of LDP election, and a series of other wacky results (eg Bullet Train election) may have occurred.
If the LDP vote had been smaller, SXP preferences may have made a difference.
But it wasn't so it didn't.
Overall, a fun hypothetical for a Sunday night.
If you have any other hypotheticals, please leave a comment below or send me an email to my email address on the sidebar.
Fabulous analysis, thanks! As a more casual reader, is there a list of "other controlled parties" someplace?
ReplyDeleteBased on the AFP article, Leyonhjelm's little-used office fax machine was apparently responsible for (not) lodging VIC preferences for the Liberal Democrats, the Republican party of Australia, Smokers Rights, and Outdoor Recreation / Stop the Greens. There is apparently some doubt over who was paying who to do what.
Deletehttp://www.afr.com/p/national/faulty_fax_machine_blamed_seat_sex_MitiCX50WGyNFbGbzexZHO
If as is suggested, much of the LDP vote in NSW was from people thinking they were the Liberal party, I wonder if this will have less impact for the BTL votes as people will come across the real Liberal party as they go through numbering all the boxes. How might this impact the results?
ReplyDeleteBTLs will flow much less strongly to LDP - BTL voters will know the LDP so will not just vote for it in droves.
DeleteWhy the use of scare quotes about "accidental" fax machine problem... do people honestly believe the bizarre conspiracy theory where the LDP arrange to have an old fax machine so that they can waste lots of their own money, cruel the chances of their own candidates, disappoint their own campaigners & supporters, and all so that they can achieve the goal of... well... something about chem-trails?
ReplyDeleteIs the LDP part of a Jewish-banker conspiracy to put fluoride in the water to terraform the earth for the coming lizard invasion? Were they involved in 9/11? Where does the conspiracy end?
At the time, conventional wisdom was that the Sex Party would be competing for the Green spot in Victoria. So the conspiracy might include the LDP being a Green front party... is that right?
Forget about legalising weed, it seems that the Sex party (and friends) have been dropping a bit too much acid if these are their hallucinations.
Personally, the limited media coverage (cf link above) suggests to me that the Lib Dems left their VIC filing until 20 minutes to midnight, failed, and then did not take any steps to attempt to correct their error. So I read 'accident' to possibly include error, incompetence, or indifference.
DeleteIf Leyonhjelm (or associates) was indeed being paid to do election paperwork by other microparties, he (or they) don't seem to have taken it terribly seriously -- or at least not seriously enough to replace the reportedly ancient fax machine in question. (Incidentally, Leyonhjelm seems completely unaware of even the possibility of email-to-fax gateways like googlefax.)
Typing the wrong phone number could be called incompetence, and I think David would probably cop that... but I doubt he's the only person to have made that mistake in history.
DeleteHe was sending through forms for all states and several parties, and misjudged how long it would take. It is not a good thing, and the people involved felt awful at the time. I know because I received a distraught phone call from somebody else who was helping.
But explain the conspiracy theory to me? Was it funded by the CIA as a part of a eugenics plot to take over the world? The idea that the LDP tried to screw over the Sex Party makes no sense... most people in the LDP support the Sex party and want them to win. Not to mention that the LDP wasted money and gave up their own chance of winning, just to help the Greens?! wtf?
David wasn't being paid to send through the preferences. He was just the coordination point for a coalition of libertarian-ish parties. And you are right that he doesn't know about email-to-fax... which is probably true of many people who are 61 years old. And the deadline was midday, not midnight. Don't trust everything you read in a newspaper.
Different hypothetical - how would the votes in Victoria have gone had the LDP gotten it's preferences in and polled somewhere between the low 3% of other states and the 9% of NSW (lets say 4% in Victoria - seems reasonable with the similar ballot placing and paper size as NSW)?
ReplyDeleteWould this support the Sex party claims it was a stitch-up or the LDP claims of an error?
It wouldn't support either as no party could know what was going to happen before the election. Whether that would have helped Sex depends entirely on where the vote comes from. It's possible, but probably not likely. Arguably, the LDP would have had a better chance of picking up a second senator there.
DeleteBut are you really another 9/11 truther, or Obama birther, or worried about lizard-alien invasions? Think through the conspiracy theory for two seconds. It makes more sense to say that it was done by Clive Palmer as a part of his plot to become a famous bikini model.
Have another sip of fluoride.
Tim Q, thanks for your question.
DeleteIt would be incredibly hard to do, I'd need to invent a new voting ticket, so I'd rather not do it at this stage...
I'd assume that the LDP's very high primary vote in NSW is such that they would be easily winning a Senate seat with just the preferences of parties who could reasonably be seen as fellow travellers.
ReplyDeleteOf more interest and relevance is the question of whether the final seat would have gone to the Greens instead of the Libs had parties such as the Sex Party, Wikileaks, Animal Justice & Bullet Train preferenced the Greens ahead of LDP and (in some cases) Shooters & Fishers.
(I could add HEMP & Drug Law Reform to that list but I think it is justifiable for those two parties to preference the LDP on policy/philosophy grounds).
I think Sex & Wiki could also justify preferencing LDP on policy/philosophy. Julian Assange has pointed to Ron & Rand Paul as heroes, and the Sex party shares LDP policies on many issues... probably more than they share with the Greens.
DeleteI'm not sure I'm convinved of that Muppet, but I won't argue it. I mentioned Sex & Wikileaks Parties in that way because they both also then preferenced Shooters & Fishers ahead of the Greens. (but Animal Justice didn't)
DeleteThis sounds like something for me to run through my models unsing a factchecking mindset, "If Animal Justice, Sex and Wikileaks had preferenced the Greens, would overall Senate numbers have been any different?" How else should I define this? Any other parties to add? (HEMP, perhaps? others?)
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I have run the scenario where Bullet, Sex, WIKI and AJP all go direct to Greens at #2 preference. The outcome is as follows:
ReplyDelete2 LNP
2 ALP
1 LDP (and this is at 100% likelihood)
+
65% GRN
35% LNP (Sinodinos)
If we modify it such that these four parties all go firstly to the Democrats and then to the GRNS, we end up with the following likelihoods:
2 LNP
2 ALP
1 LDP
+
49% GRN
48% DEM
3% LNP3
0.4% Shooters and Fishers.
Oh, it's a funny game, these Senate preferences. Part of me thinks Senate elections should be much more than games.
Yes - the WA outcome is a classic. Tiny shifts in the vote for 2 micro parties leads to different outcomes for 5th and 6th Senate spot.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with Clive Palmer's assertions that the system is stuffed, but it could easily be improved!
DeleteTruth Seeker