Voters: A plague on both your houses
Sun 22 Aug 2010Strange thing on the scrutineering last night. Something unexpected; something which won’t show up in the official figures.
In Forde, for the House of Representatives, there were four candidates; Greens, LNP, Labor and Family First in ballot paper order. (There’s a photo of my ballot paper in my previous post.)
When calculating the Two-Party-Preferred figures (distributing Greens and Family First 2nd and 3rd preferences), about 20% of Greens second preferences went to Family First. At the same time, about 20% of Family First second preferences went to the Greens.
Now the Greens and Family First are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. It would usually be completely unexpected that anyone who voted [1] for either Greens or Family First would vote [2] for the other. The LNP scrutineer and I both spotted the trend and looked at each other in disbelief.
It was the Labor scrutineer who told us what was happening. Voters were saying “A pox upon both your houses!” They were voting for ANYONE before going to one of the Majors.
Not only are we staring down the barrel of a hung parliament, but clearly, there’s a lot of disaffected voters out there - even more than the stupidly-high 6.6% (at our booth) informal vote would suggest. I don’t think either major party can claim much of a mandate for anything after this election.
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Update: Sun 22 Aug 2010 (late)
Protest Vote
I’ve been asked to estimate the size of the “protest vote”. My calculations are based on my observations while scrutineering at one booth (Shailer Park in Forde).
- 20% of Greens primary can be called a “protest vote” because 2nd pref was directed to Family First : 20% of 13.54% = 2.71%
- 20% of Family First primary can be called a “protest vote” because 2nd pref was directed to Greens : 20% of 5.60% = 1.12%
- Increase in Informal : 6.63% in 2010, less 3.30% at the same booth in 2007* = 3.33%
- Total Protest Vote 7.16%
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* Note that Shailer Park was in Rankin in 2007 and was redistributed into Forde in 2010.
Other interesting factoid: the successful LNP candidate for Forde in 2010, Bert Van Manen, stood for Rankin in 2007 as a Family First candidate.
August 22nd, 2010 at 2:21
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August 23rd, 2010 at 20:55
Green too, but not like your gob-smackingly extraordinary 20%, Mike. Last hung parliament was Victoria in 1999 and brought joy at the demise of Kennett. Just managing to hold off Abbott (if it happens) is cause for less euphoria but still something. Please put microphones in front of Barnaby Joyce at every opportunity. He could do it for us on his own
October 5th, 2010 at 14:27
I disagree about the 20% of Greens/FFP being a protest vote based upon their preferences towards each other. It may be true, but to state it in the way you have is mere speculation.
The two parties have fairly similar policies in several key areas. Refugee rights for instance. Also, care policies.
My experience as well, shows that the incredible level of political uneducation causes at least some of the informal votes; many people simply do not know how to fill out the ballots.
October 5th, 2010 at 23:57
Hi Goose, Thanks for your comment. You are correct; calling it a protest vote is speculation. What would you call it? Perhaps “Latham Effect”? In any case, the observed 20% is not something I or the LNP scrutineer had seen in any previous election.
There may have been some similarities in Greens and Family First policies, but that certainly didn’t influence the pre-election rhetoric. The worst example of this was Wendy Francis, Family First Senate candidate for Queensland, she who equated legalising gay marriage to child abuse. In each of her weekly radio debates with Senate candidates from other minor parties, she never referred to The Greens without calling them “The Radical Greens.” She regularly said that the Greens were the greatest evil facing Australia’s future. Finally, Family First placed The Greens last on their Senate Group Voting Ticket. I’d say that puts them at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
As for “political uneducation”, you might have a point if referring to Australia as a whole. My observation was at one booth only. The demographics would have included lower than average number of young people, unemployed or homeless. It’s a moderately well-off suburb in an outer-metropolitan area populated by teachers, nurses, tradesmen and small-business people; many within a decade of retiring age. I think these folks knew what they were doing.