Greens not Home in West Metro

ABC electoral analyst, Antony Green, assessment of the current results has come up short.

Greens analysis is predicated on the Greens achieving quota before the Liberal Party. This is unlikely at this stage of the count. The Greens are heavily reliant on Sex Party to bring it over the line.

The Greens miss out on holding on to a seat with just a 10% drift in Sex Party below-the-line preferences to Labor. There are currently 1,190 Sex Party below-the-line preferences representing 9.7% of their Group total (0.28 of a quota) The Greens need close to 97% of Sex Party's Group vote to secure a quota.

The ALP is expected to collect most if not all of the DLP preferences and any surplus derived from a Liberal Party's second candidate win on the back of Family First preferences. For the sake of the exercise we can assume that Family first and the DLP are one and that their combined vote will elect the Liberals second candidate and then flow on to Labor. All three parties(FF, DLP and Liberals) preference the Greens last.

It is unclear if any of the DLP, Family first or Liberal below-the-line preferences will exhaust under Victoria new optional preferential rules. It is unlikely that either would have a significant leakage to the Greens certainly not enough to counter a 10% Sex Party below-the-line preference drift. (The estimate of a 10% drift in Sex Party below-the-line preferences is conservative and could be much higher, which will makes it even more harder for the Greens to be re-elected)

Update: Further analysis shows that a 9% Sex Party, drift to the ALP and 5% FF/DLP and 20% Liberal Drift to the Greens in below-the-line prefernces will see the ALP home and over quota.

Western Metro, once again, will be a close race but contrary to Antony Green's assessment the Greens Party is not favourite to win. With over 4,875 votes to be counted it is unlikely that the Greens will secure sufficient numbers to survive the count. But as they say it is not over until the fat lady sings and the election count is final.

We can expect a recount as both parties have already flagged as much should they not win the provisional count.

In 2006, five hundred votes went missing from the total vote tally between Count A and Count B. What happened to them is anyone's guess.

No one seams to know the final expected number of ballot papers issued and returned. A tabulated cross check with the lower house votes and the voting centre returns should under the circumstances prove interesting to say the least, which may explain why the VEC is reluctant to provide this information early. The fact that they are not making available copies of the below the line preference data files during the data-entry process is another issue of concern as it prevents scrutineers from closely monitoring the progress of the count and or verifying the integrity of the data file used to tabulate trhe results of the election.