Saturday, December 4, 2010

Poll Bludger Dr of Tea Leaf Reading and misinformation as Contol of the upper-house is won by the Coalition

Poll Bludger Dr William Bowie has misread and miscalled the outcome of the Victorian Legislative Council election.  One week since the State election and the media is already tired of following the results of the election. Such is the extent of the media and public attention span.  The VEC has refused to provided summary details of the polling place declarations and the number of ballot papers issued and returned.  The figures provided show a significant discrepancy between the number of lower-house  ballot and the number for the upper-house in theory they should be the same.  Accoring to the last data available 10,000's of votes have gone missing and the VEC is not providing scrutineers with the information they require to ensure that all votes are counted bringing the VEC and the conduct of the election into disrepute.

In an extraordinary act of blind faith Dr Bowie has latched on to the hope and dream of corporate Australia's most rejected board aspirant Stephen Mayne,founder of crikey journal (which sponsors the good Dr's Tea Leaf reading clubs blog) and candidate for Victoria's upper-house Northern Metropolitan Region.

ABC Antony Green's registered party ticket calculator has Mayne listed as winning a seat on the Red velvet. Dr Bowie wrote
Stephen Mayne has discussed his prospects at length in his email newsletter, noting he has two hurdles to clear: first to stay ahead of the Greens at what appears as count 8 in the ABC’s projection, where he is currently on 1.54 per cent to the Greens’ 1.22 per cent, and then for the below-the-line count to not upset his applecart by putting him behind Liberal and Labor at the second last count. Mayne rates himself only a 50-50 chance of clearing the first hurdle as he expects the Greens to surge as absent votes are added. I’m not sure what was added today, but the addition has seen the Greens lose ground – possibly too much for Mayne, as Kevin Bonham argues in comments, because it will mean fewer of their preferences for him if he can stay ahead. Bonham reckons Mayne will need to significantly outperform Labor in preferences from the 3170 below-the-line votes which are recorded as going to him on the ABC projection, which treats all votes as above-the-lines.

Well the Dr's diagnose is wrong.  The Last results reported showed that Mayne had in fact fallen below the Green in at the crucial conjuncture in the count.  What Antony Green failed to take into account were the 309 votes for independent Adrian Whitehead.  At the last count before the VEC withdraw the publication of the results Whitehead had 309 votes - all of which followed his HTV Card and flowed onto to the Greens putting the Greens 2nd candidate ahead of Mayne. If Mayne can survive and out-poll the Greens he would win (The system in Victoria is not the same as in Tasmania).  The most likely result is a second seat win for the Liberal Party and if elected the LNP Coalition will have absolute control of both houses and as such will be in a position to undo all of the labor legislative changes that have been implemented over the last 11 years.

Dr Bowie has the Upper-house listed as being

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

ALP LIB NAT GRN OTH IN DOUBT
Eastern Metro 2 3



Northern Metro 2 (-1) 1
1
IND/LIB
South-Eastern Metro 3 2



Southern Metro 1 (-1) 3 (+1)
1

Western Metro 3 1
0 (-1)
LIB/GRN
Eastern Victoria 2 2 1


Northern Victoria 2 1 (-1) 1

LIB/CA
Western Victoria 2 2 1 (+1)
0 (-1)
TOTAL 17 15 3 2 0 3


Without knowing how many ballot papers were issued and returned it is still impossible to say for certian what the outcome wll be,

The most likely reality is that all three seats that Dr Bowie has in doubt will be won by the coalition mostly due to Sex Party who delivered the crucial 2-3% where it counted.  The Greens survived in Southern Metro because Sex Party topped by their vote pushing them ahead of Labor's Jenifer Huppert. Like wise Sex Party help the Liberals win in Western and Northern Metropolitan electorates.  And who handed out sex Party's how-to-vote cards?

Like Dr Bowie and the Media, The ALP head office had its eye off the upper-house ballot.  They failed to cut a good preference deal that would have seen control of the upper house remain out of reach for any single party let along the possibility of a incoming Liberal Government.

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