Articles from The Tally Room

Turnout is up, and election day is down

We are now getting to the point in the election count where all of the primary votes appear to have been counted. We don’t have all the preference data yet – Bradfield is obviously still in play, the two-party-preferred count is not quite complete, and we don’t have 3CP or distribution of preferences data outside of Calwell. But now that we know how many votes were cast, we can analyse the level of turnout, and how many people voted early, and voted with a particular voting method.

Observations from the Bradfield recount

I had the opportunity today to visit the Bradfield recount, thanks to being appointed as a scrutineer. I did not attempt to challenge any ballots, but this gave me the best way to see how the process works. I was thinking of doing a podcast, and I may do that at some point if I get to interview some of the scrutineers, but for now I thought I’d summarise what I found in a blog post.

Breaking down the informal vote

The vote count is now getting to a point where pretty much all primary votes have been counted, even if we don’t have all of the preference counts yet. So that means we can now begin to analyse the informal voting trends – where it went up or down, and what some of the causes could be.

Senate button pushes – live blog

Monday 4:38pm – As everyone had called, the Liberal Party has lost their third seat in South Australia’s to Labor’s Charlotte Walker. That is a 4-2 split. It’s worth remembering that traditionally these 4-2 splits are rare. Prior to 2025, Labor had gained two 4-2 splits (with the Democrats the fourth “left” senator) in NSW in 1990 and 1998, two in Tasmania in 2007 and 2010, and one in Western Australia in 2022.

Measuring the independents

One of the big stories of 2025 has been the rise of independents. There was a notable increase in the number of independents who stood at this election, but that in itself is not the most important factor. There is a tremendous range in how well an independent might poll, and how serious their campaign might be.

Booth map of the day – Banks and Hughes

Today’s booth map covers two neighbouring seats in southern Sydney, both of which flipped from Liberal to Labor in 2025.

The Bradfield recount is on

The AEC finished the distribution of preferences for Bradfield late on Friday night, after a fascinating day that started with teal independent Nicolette Boele leading by 28 votes and ending with her 8 votes behind. This was a shift of 48 votes from Boele’s 40-vote margin at the end of the indicative 2CP count on Monday afternoon.

This has automatically triggered a recount, as the margin is less than 100 votes. The recount will commence on Monday.

What can the booth results tell us about the Muslim vote?

For today’s post I am looking at how the Muslim vote changed, using some techniques I’ve previously used to look at voters of Chinese and Indian ancestry in past votes.

Booth map of the day – Bean and Fremantle

Next up on booth map of the day, I’m looking at two seats that were previously considered safe Labor seats, but were very narrowly retained against independent challengers: Bean in southern Canberra and Fremantle in Western Australia.

For each map I’ve shown the Labor vs Independent 2CP map (but no 2CP swing map), primary vote maps for the independent, Labor and Liberal, and primary vote swing maps for Labor and Liberal.

The Nationals dilemma

Yesterday, the Nationals announced that they would not be renewing the coalition with the Liberal Party following the 2025 federal election. This is unlikely to be a permanent break, but rather the parties taking some time apart to re-assess their positions after a devastating election defeat.

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