Today's the day - live blogging tonight and scenarios-on-demand today

We're here!

Today, about 60% of West Australians will vote, in addition to those that have already voted and quite a few who won't. While the election will cost approx $20m to run, if the AEC enforces fines on the estimated 150,000-200,000 people who don't vote, this will reduce their net costs by a cool fe million dollars. At the midpoint, if the fine were to be increased from $20 to $120, then this entire election could be run at no net cost to the Australian budget bottom line.

If you would like me to run a scenario based on your estimated primaries, leave a comment below and I'll respond when I can. I will likely be busy from AEST 9:30am-1:00pm, and 5:00-7:00pm so there'll be chunks of today that I can't run my Monte Carlo model. I'll do my best though.

New BludgerTrack data, Private polling included in aggregate

Quick post bringing it all together - private polling + latest BludgerTrack data.

(UPDATED) Private data

I thought of writing a post predicting the election of both Group C independents as an April Fool's day joke, but then I actually got enough information to write a real post based on new information.

Exclusive private polling emailed by a white knight to TruthSeeker HQ has revealed that:

Palmernami?

Data is king.

In a world of asymmetric information, a data hound such as I relies on the evidence around me to form views and opinions. While my innovative Monte Carlo simulations are straight data crunchers, there is always the risk of "Garbage in - Garbage out". That is, if my initial primary vote estimates are erroneous, there's no point.

Latest Monte Carlo simulations using updated BludgerTrack estimations

What a week it's been. Saturday night and I fnially have time for another update.

The timing of this is propitious as yesterday saw a significant move in the polling estimates produced by Poll Bludger's "BludgerTrack"

In this weekly update, the LNP 2PP moved from 49.9% to 48.2%, on the back of weak polling performance by the Government. Additional information is that the Greens vote is slightly up and the LNP performance in WA is down even more than the trend.

(UPDATED) Monte Carlo Simulation - who will get elected to the WA Senate?

Under the preferential model used in Australian Senate elections, the so-called "Droop Quota" ensures the quota is as low as possible while ensuring the number of candidates elected cannot exceed the number of vacancies.

Accordingly, in a half senate election, the quota becomes 14.29% of the total number of formal votes cast. Under a hypothetical scenario where the Liberal party were to poll 43%, Labor 29% and the Greens 15%, for example, the electees would be 3xLiberal, 2xLabor and 1xGreens, and no further counting would be necessary. Okay, so this is not going to happen! But it is possible that the two major parties may poll in the vicinity of these numbers, reducing the analysis to the final electee only.

I have used the following method for estimating the primary votes of each of the parties:

WA Half Senate election - T-16

Hello all,

Welcome back!

While I can't say how frequently I'll be able to post over the next two weeks (and possibly beyond), I will have an attempt at providing:
- new estimated seat percentages whenever new polling becomes available
- custom estimates for those of you who wish to say that my base percentage vote estimates are wrong
- potentially, a "live" election night blogging service.

My work and family life is much busier than September/October last year, but I'll do my best to write updates when I can.

I have exhumed my Monte Carlo Simulation model, loaded in the new WA preferences and reestimated primary votes for parties based on figures publicly available on the inimitable PollBludger's homepage.

I have also run several scenarios for what we might expect various parties to poll, refined some numbers due to differing ballot positions, superimposed national level swings, etc. And, I have also investigated some of $portsbet's juicier odds. Did you know, at the time of writing, PUP is $1.85 to get Zhenya "Dio" Wang elected to the senate? Or $1.85 to not get elected to the Senate? Take your pick!

More on this later.

Right now, I'll try to modernise my blog, lop off some old limbs, and generally do some gardening.

WA Senate recount mini addendum

Here at Truth Seeker HQ, we seek the truth however this can be brought to light. Rather than trying to do all the hard work ouselves, in this instance I will just refer you to the comments made by various anonymous citizens on my last two posts - herein exists a great summary of key vote variations due to the recount. Thank you for your collective diligence. I fear alternative time pressures may prevent me from doing the full booth by booth breakdown, but I am delighted others have gone to this effort.

Final WA Senate results... until overturned by the courts

Well, what a busy few weeks its been! Apologies for not prew in the PUP/ALP vs GRN/SPORT tag team match we've just witnessed). It is also pleasing that this means that informal BTLs were reconsidered, as per my request to AEC.

The revised data dump available online shows the Shooters vs Christian margin which was 14 votes in favour of the Shooters (and hence PUP/ALP) is now actually 12 votes in favour of the Christians (and hence GRN/SPORT).

What has happened is that the number of Christian votes is 25 higher than previously, while the number of Shooters votes is 1 lower. I could make a reference to this being a Christian miracle, but I will let the reader decide if He would intervene to elect an additional Greens MPs!

Notable changes in votes as a result of the recount:
All parties gained votes BTL, half gained and half lost votes ATL
Christians: +26 (incl +5 ATL, +21 BTL)
Shooters: -6 (-23, +17)
Aus Ind, AFLP ATL: -7 (these flowed through to the Shooters via Group Voting Ticket)
No Carbon Tax: -15 (This flowed through to the Christians via Group Voting Ticket)
This means the Christians fared 14 better on other BTLs, and the Shooters fared 12 better on other BTLs. This is slightly high, but not crazily so, given the new number of BTL votes recorded is 701 higher.

(post modified): It is now widely known that there are 1375 missing votes. I think it almost inevitable that a new election will be called. If so, it becomes a gamble to everyone, as we move into unprecedented territory. While a more pleasing option would be to include the lost votes in the manner they were at the counted in the original count, I doubt the courts will do this. I advise readers to view the comments thread from my previous post.

As a slight aside, I also talked about the Kambalda West vote (O'Connor), and stated that the Senate vote for Labor looked 50 votes too low. I note the recount has "found" these votes, with an additional 50 coming Labor's way and an additional 2 (probably BTL) as well. If I was more enthusiastic, I'd rerun my whole discrepancies spreadsheet that I created... (unlikely :-)

I have put some thought into possible Senate voting reform options, but I could not write anything better than the excellent summary that Kevin Bonham has come up with. The only addition to Kevin's commentary I would like to add is that the randomness of voting columns has distorted outcomes. While we acknowledge randomness is fair in theory, I think that listing parties by their performance in the last Senate election would be fairer. Sure, the Liberal Party would be Group A, Labor Group B, Greens in Group C in just about all states. But when 85%+ of people want to vote for these parties, what is wrong with this?

For the future... I doubt I will have the time to post weekly as I previously stated. I think it is highly likely I will resume blogging for the new WA Senate election, the Vic upper house election, and possibly some number crunching for the SA upper house election.

If I don't post again soon, I owe a big thanks to the tens of thousands of you who have visited my blog over the last two months. Also, thanks to Tim Colebatch, Kevin Bonham, Andrew Crook and the prolific Poll Bludger Will Bowe for trusting my work and reporting my conclusions. And thanks to those who have provided me informal information of what's happening behind the party lines, and the mysterious Maxine for sharpening my modelling. My initial aims were to draw attention to a range of unrepresentative election scenarios, and to test whether financial analysis techniques such as Monte Carlo Analysis could be applied to elections. I'm satisfied that I more or less achieved my aims.

Day 5. No response. :-(

After receiving no response to my email, I tweeted the AEC asking what their service standard was regarding the amount of time it takes to respond to communication. But in 140 Characters some truncation is needed 2 get my msg a X.

Here's what I said:

Dear @AusElectoralCom I sent detailed email 5 days ago. Do u have Service Standards re comms response time? #Ausvotes http://originaltruthseeker.blogspot.com.au

How long do you think it will take? I would have thought 1 week was reasonable?

Day 4: Waiting...

Although you may think I have been absent from doing anything electorally related, I have actually been... waiting.

While doing so, I have been researching the AEC's Service Charter and AEC Corporate Values.

One of the AEC's three commitments is:

"An informed community

We will provide you with timely and accurate

information on electoral matters. Wherever possible,

we will provide this information in a language or format

suitable to you."

Furthermore, a "Value" of the AEC is Service:

"We value: Service
We aim to provide you with:
-convenient and accessible polling places
-assistance when required, for example on
election day
-privacy at the polling booth when you are voting
-postal and pre-poll voting options, if you cannot
easily access a polling place
-enrolment and other forms that are easy for you to use
-clear, accurate and timely advice"

I will let the reader determine what "timely" means in this matter. Perhaps within a week? Or before a serious recount of Senate votes commences?

I am remaining confident that the AEC will deliver a response within a reasonable timeframe.

Open letter to AEC

I have received feedback via several media that I should outline your concerns and my concerns directly to the AEC. Below is the text of a letter I have emailed to the AEC. I will post a response when I receive one.


Dear Phil,

Recount... But not a complete one...

AEC has confirmed a partial near complete recount will be conducted.

Will informal BTL's be recounted? For example the 50 Waggrakine BTL informals as per my previous post?

I think this is a fair outcome. Noone (well... not many...) is questioning the accuracy of BTLs that have been reentered twice in the data entry process.

Next update tonight hopefully

Recount announcement and implications

So, the word on the street is the AEC will be announcing whether or not to proceed with a recount tomorrow.

I believe democracy will be better served by having a recount occur.

I have outlined a large number of discrepancies - some large, some medium and some that are just blatently obvious but minor (like the missing Democrat vote).

My next post will likely be Wednesday night as I won't have much time during the day tomorrow. If there is an announcement tomorrow, I will comment on it tomorrow night.

Waggrakine and the missing Democrat vote

This afternoon I received a tip-off from an anonymous, and also politically independent, amateur data cruncher who works in a non-political field. His/her analysis was maximally good, so let's call him/her "Maxine"

Waggrakine, recount, Kambalda & misc WA Senate comments

Thanks to everyone for the dozens of comments over the last few days. I have been in a low-internet area that would benefit from better internet. It is pleasing to see so many genuine, polite and relevant comments here combined with great educative discussion.

Avid media consumers will have noticed the following two articles which were based, in part, on my analysis:
1. The Age – Double Dissolution forecasts
2. Crikey – prospects and rationale for a WA Senate recount

In response to the comments on this blog in my electronic absence:

Friday update (v brief)

Thanks everyone for your enlightened and  enthusiastic commentary today.  If have read all your intelligent comments.

Nothing I have read our seen makes me think the process would be worse off by doing a recount. So let's do it if not only to legitimise the victors for the next 6 years.

I'm travelling until Sunday night so won't be able to individually talons until then. But I will.

In the meantime, check out https://t.co/nfI4WeQobG. At least two people claim to have actually voted btl at the geraldton booth. Not that this would have changed the result. .. probably.

But surely it tells us we should conduct a full recount.

UPDATE: For my previous article about the Senate composition in a double dissolution, follow this link:
http://originaltruthseeker.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/and-you-thought-current-senate-was.html?m=0

WA Polling booths discrepancies

Here at Truth Seeker, we seek the truth. Simple.

Click to see multiple examples of vote discrepancy...

WA Senate - rolling observations post Distribution of preferences

Keep coming back here this evening for oddities regarding the WA Senate election.

(Updates in reverse order, so hence the "reverse donkey" numbering)

Button Press Preview

Tomorrow the AEC will press the button on WA and NSW. Queensland is behind by an unknown period of time (at least during daylight savings we know it's just one hour...)

Mini-preview below... Updates in a new post tomorrow...