Nominations were announced today for the Tasmanian state election. After record-sized ballot papers at the previous election in 2024, they will shrink slightly in 2025. There will be fewer columns on the ballot paper, along with larger fields of ungrouped independents. While ballot papers will be smaller than in 2024, they will still be some of the largest seen in recent decades. The average number of columns is slightly smaller than the 35-seat election of 1996, equal to 2014 and otherwise more than every election other than 2024 since 1989.
So firstly it’s worth clarifying that there are two different kinds of independents who nominate for Tasmanian House of Assembly elections, with a higher threshold required for the second group. Independents can run as ungrouped candidates, or can run a group. Groups are not required to run a full slate of seven candidates, and it’s quite common for an independent to run as a one-candidate group. Rather than giving group status to any candidates with a particular threshold of candidates, that status is dependent on a higher nomination threshold.
I don’t see the point in counting individual independent candidates, but prefer to count the number of distinct campaigns. Peter George may be running seven candidates for his group in Franklin, but that is not equivalent to seven different independents running separately. By my measure, the number of independent campaigns has gone up slightly.
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There was an enormous surge of independent campaigns in 2024, both grouped and ungrouped. This year’s numbers are still far above the long-term trend but involve more ungrouped candidates and fewer independent groups – down from 14 to 9.
In practice ungrouped independents usually poll a very low vote, whereas a number of grouped independents ran viable campaigns in 2024.
The number of candidates in total has dropped slightly from 167 to 161 candidates.
The most meaningful way in which a ballot paper’s size can be measured is the number of columns on the ballot paper. By that measure, the 2025 ballots are substantially smaller than 2024. The 2024 ballots were 9.8 columns long on average, while the ballot papers this year have dropped to 7.
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Excluding 2024, the previous highest levels were 7.2 columns in 1992 and 7 columns in 2014. So 2025 is a relatively high figure, but nothing like 2024.
The average number of parties on each ballot paper is 4.2. The Liberal, Labor and Greens parties are running in every electorate. The Nationals are running in the three northern electorates, as are the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers.
So the two southern electorates just have the three biggest parties, while the other three electorates have five party options.
The grouped independent candidates are most prominent in Braddon, where Craig Garland and Joel Badcock are running on their own, while another group is running with six candidates, with Adam Martin the most prominent of them.
Clark and Franklin each have two independent groups: Peter George and David O’Byrne in Franklin, and Kristie Johnston and Elise Archer in Clark. And then ex-JLN independent Rebekah Pentland is running in Bass, and former JLN candidate Angela Offord is running in Lyons.
It’s also worth noting that the Nationals are running at least three former or current MPs. Former JLN MP Miriam Beswick is running in Braddon, while ex-JLN Andrew Jenner and ex-Liberal John Tucker are running in Lyons. Beswick and Jenner both running on the same ticket is particularly unusual as the two parted ways in 2024. It’s particularly interesting that Beswick has joined while Pentland runs on her own ticket as the two seem to have acted in concert since they both left the JLN. Former JLN candidate Angela Armstrong is running as a National against Pentland in Bass.
Finally this table was particularly of interest in 2024, as all five electorates had ballot papers in the top ten biggest in the last few decades of Tasmanian politics. This year’s ballots don’t register as highly, but the Braddon ballot is actually the biggest that electorate has ever seen, with nine columns. That puts the 2025 Braddon ballot in the top seven biggest in the modern era.
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