Election Results
First, the scores: Betting markets: +1; Pundits: 0; Polls: -1.
While geeking out on partial tallies, Michael noticed the extremely high informal count in his electorate, and noted that “we’re none too bright here in Rankin”. If you consider informal voting a measure of dumbness, it turns out Rankin’s the dumbest electorate in Queensland (at least as of close of counting on election night). Not the dumbest in the country though — there are eleven with an even higher informal count, all in NSW. Ha! Unfortunately for Queensland’s claims to be the smart state, Victoria has the top four electorates as far as voting formally goes.
Apart from inter-state rivalry, there’s another correlation to be found too. See if you can spot it:
Reid, 11.41% informal: ALP with 62.3%
Greenway, 11.18% informal: ALP with 50.9%
Blaxland, 10.45% informal: ALP with 62.8%
Chifley, 10.32% informal: ALP with 62.9%
Prospect, 9.15% informal: ALP with 56.7%
Fowler, 9.13% informal: ALP with 71.5%
Watson, 9.04% informal: ALP with 65.6%
Werriwa, 8.07% informal: ALP with 59.4% (Mark Latham’s seat)
Parramatta, 8.02% informal: ALP with 50.4%
Kingsford Smith, 7.94% informal: ALP with 58.7% (Peter Garrett’s seat)
Lindsay, 7.68% informal: LIB with 54.0%
Rankin, 7.60% informal: ALP with 52.4%
Dobell, 7.48% informal: LIB with 55.6%
Banks, 7.33% informal: ALP with 51.2%
Port Adelaide, 7.23% informal: ALP with 62.4%
Oxley, 7.21% informal: ALP with 59.4%
Barton, 7.19% informal: ALP with 57.3%
Macarthur, 6.92% informal: LIB with 59.6%
Lowe, 6.89% informal: ALP with 53.4%
Fadden, 6.87% informal: LIB with 65.5%
Australia’s dumbest electorates overwhelmingly return Labor representatives. Coincidence?
(For reference, the 16 ALP seats above represent a little over a quarter of the seats the ALP are looking at winning, the Liberal seats make up about 5% of the coalition’s haul. For a little perspective, the PM’s seat of Bennelong had 6.20% informal, and went with 57.71%; Kim Beazley’s seat of Brand had 5.49% informal and went with 60.05%. Bendigo’s got the best informal rate so far on 2.83%, and is returning Steve Gibbons, the sitting Labor member.)