The AEC has released this lovely little resource – how does election night work.

Federal election counting 101: How does it work?

“Right, not rushed” is the AEC’s counting motto. Part of the reason that Australian elections have been highly valued and admired for so long is the ability for political participants and voters to have patience with the process.  

Counting will start on election night at 6pm local time. It’ll occur in polling places around Australia and in the AEC’s central counting centres. Key information about that process is available below. 

Where can the results be seen?

• Results will be updated progressively on the AEC’s Tally Room from after 6pm AEST. A link to the Tally Room will be available on the AEC website’s homepage on election night.
• Some media participants (mostly broadcast outlets) are receiving the media feed of raw election results. This data is the same as what appears on the AEC tally room but in a different format, able to be digested in specially built software for display.
• The tally room automatically refreshes every 90 seconds on election night and every fifteen minutes in the days afterwards. Each refresh will pick up the latest results available to be displayed at that time.

What is counted on Saturday night?

• All House of Representatives and Senate votes cast near a voter’s home division on election day will be counted that night.
• The majority of pre-poll votes cast for the House of Representatives (again, those cast near a voter’s home division) will also be counted on the night.
• Approximately 2,000 postal votes will also be counted in most electoral divisions on election night.
  • This has been done previously at by-elections but is a first for this federal election. It provides a trendline for postal votes that analysts can use to assist in predicting results.
  • The majority of postal vote counting commences in the days following a federal election. The AEC can receive completed postal vote packs up until 13 days after election day.
• House of Representatives votes are counted first. This includes a first preference count followed by a two-candidate preferred (TCP) count.

What is a two-candidate preferred count?

• On election night, the AEC is legally required to conduct an indicative preference count in each House of Representatives contest. After first preference votes are allocated and counted, votes are re-sorted into two piles – these piles are for the candidates deemed by the AEC as most likely to be the final two candidates in the count.
• This does not in any way discount preferences for other candidates but rather is just a mechanism to provide as early an indication of a potential result in each seat as possible.
• TCP counts, and the process for resetting TCP selections, is explained in more detail on the AEC’s website.

What time on election night will counts be reported?

• The short answer is that each count – from polling places, pre-poll centres and initial postal vote counts – will be published once they’re finalised. There is no hard and fast timing.
• It is reasonable to expect that some of the smaller polling places will have results posted from around 7pm local time with a steadier flow of mid-large sized polling places from around 8-8:30pm local time onwards.
• Pre-poll counts can be quite large. Generally, pre-poll counts start being displayed from around9:30pm local time through until quite late in the night. Results for postal counts will also start being displayed from around 9:30pm.
• All activities occur in the relevant time zones, so results from central and western time zones come in later than eastern states.

Will there be an overall result on election night?

• The first indications of results in individual House of Representatives divisions, and who will form government, are always made by electoral analysts and commentators.
• Whether or not a clear indication of a result is available on election night depends entirely on how close the margin in particular seats is, and how close the margin is in the number of seats in the House of Representatives.
• The AEC never officially declares results of a federal election on election night.

Kim says:

I wonder what tough questions the press will ask Mr Dutton at the NPC……oh…. wait….

Exactly. It used to be a tradition that both leaders did a NPC in the final week of the campaign, but Morrison kinda put an end to that and Dutton has avoided the press club like its a morning tea with rainbow cupcakes.

Michael has an update on the Kooyong signage drama:

The Kooyong signage drama at pre-poll booths escalates today with the Booroonda Council confiscating Amelia Hamer’s signs.

The media reports through the campaign that she wasn’t prepared to participate in candidate forums. Relying on these signs looks to be the epitome of Howard’s “fattening the pig on market day” strategy.

You can read that story, here

And Sandra says:

Libs complain about ‘Chinese Spies’ volunteering for Labor while accepting volunteers from a religious sect which doesn’t allow its members to vote. Hmmm, yay for hypocrisy.
loving the blog & now the opportunity to comment as well. Thanks to all at the Australia Institute for providing this. (Thanks for reading!)

It’s occurred so many times this campaign people might be used to it, but that doesn’t make it right.

The Jewish Council of Australia have once again called out Peter Dutton’s claim that he is standing against antisemitism, while repeating lines from the far right and doing preference deals with One Nation.

So amongst the Joe Exotic, NO RAGRETS and other ridiculousness (upside down face emoji) there was also some questions on tax reform, the direction of Australia and also, sovereignty.

The strongest answer came when he was asked by Laura Tingle about the possibility of refreshing Australia’s defence review, in light of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Albanese said:

You don’t need a refresh to tell any Labor Prime Minister, the party of John Curtin, that we need to defend ourselves. I think it was a Labor prime minister who understood that the kowtowing to the UK as it was then, wasn’t going to defend Australia and I’m very proud to be part of the same party that defended Australia. Importantly, they turned to Curtin, not with an election – because the existing UAP government, conservative government, toppled out of office because people thought they needed the national interest defended and it was Labor who did it then and it’s Labor that will do it now.

That’s the strongest answer Albanese has given about building self-reliance within Australia and comes on top of what he sees as his bigger reforms of Made in Australia (essentially reinstating manufacturing capabilities) and critical minerals.

Does this indicate that a second term Labor government would actually do something with power? The history of this government wouldn’t point to it. But if Labor doesn’t do something with a second chance (if they are handed one) then they might find themselves pushed aside for a disruptor who will.

Q: I have another question about the possibility of a hung parliament, which is that several Independent MPs have called for a review of the AUKUS agreement. Would AUKUS, and indeed foreign policy in general, be up for discussion with minor parties and Independent MPs in any negotiations that might have to happen to achieve a minority government?

Albanese:

No.

And that is it. The NPC address is over and Anthony Albanese is about to take off for a six state blitz in the last 48 hours of the campaign. Thoughts and prayers to the journalists, photographers and camera operators on that bus.

Joshua Black and Jack Thrower

The PM and the education minister have made big noises about easing cost of living pressures for Australians with large HECS/HELP debts. But they’ve been very slow to do anything about the high cost of getting a degree in the first place. Students of communications, humanities and the arts are particularly bad off since the Morrison government came up with the controversial Job-ready Graduates package (JRG) in 2020. JRG increased the cost of law and commerce courses by 28% and saw the cost of humanities subjects more than double. At the time, ministers argued that price incentives would redirect students to STEM, nursing, teaching and other areas.

Before JRG, fees for degrees were justified by some combination of the cost of teaching (for example, teaching dentistry is more expensive than history) or the graduate’s expected earnings (for example law and business graduates tend to earn more than those in creative arts and social sciences). JRG tossed away these justifications. Arts subjects are cheap to teach, and graduates have relatively lower earnings. JRG even failed on its own terms. One analysis found that less than one in fifty (1.5%) students swapped their field of study because of the change. Students are still enrolling in courses targeted by the Morrison government but face astronomical debt for doing so. Perversely, JRG universities now get less overall funding than they need to deliver STEM courses.

JRG compounded what was already a dire situation for graduates. Between 2006 and 2024, the average HECS/HELP debt for people in their 20s grew from $12,600 to $31,500. The time it takes to repay that debt has also blown out, from an average of 7.3 years in 2006 to almost a decade in 2023.

Repealing JRG would make a real difference to the cost of living for arts, communications and law students and graduates over the long term. It would also remind Australians that universities are not just factories for pumping out skilled workers.

Commonwealth parliamentarians shouldn’t need to look far for justification of the value of an arts degree — a third of MPs in the 47th Parliament were arts graduates. For them, higher education was either free or significantly more affordable than it is today. If the next parliament wants to show that it is serious about helping graduates with the cost of living, it would scrap the unfair Job-ready Graduates package.

Yesterday saw another 800,000 Australians vote early, continuing this year’s trend of record high early voting. That’s slightly down from yesterday when about 840,000 voted, but still almost 200,000 more than the same point last year. In total four million Australians, 22% of registered voters, have now cast a pre-poll vote – at this point last election only 3.2 million had.

So far postal voting is slightly lower than the last election, but with pre-polling numbers remaining sky-high it seems increasingly likely that this election will either match or beat 2022’s record for early voting.

Wondering how pre-polling has evolved over time, and what the implications are of so many early votes? You can read more about that here.

Now Anthony Albanese is being asked whether he would accept supply and confidence in a minority parliament and just SIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Apparently the Joe Exotic from Tiger King (does anyone remember that time during the pandemic lock downs when that insane show had a chokehold on the world?) who is in jail for murder and animal abuse has endorsed Anthony Albanese on Instagram. (I am not checking this. My social algo is cooked enough as it is with all the politics)

A journalist seems to very seriously be asking whether anyone from Labor may have paid Joe Exotic, convicted murderer and animal abuser, for a social media endorsement.

Albanese:

He’s in jail. Isn’t that the question? I wasn’t even aware of it – I think the point of that question was to ask the question rather than to get a serious answer, I hope.

Albanese says that isn’t a criticism and he thinks it is good to have “a bit of levity” in which case, his idea of humour and mine are very different.

Asked if he has any SPECIFIC regrets (honestly – wtf to this question), Albanese says:

I don’t pretend to be perfect. You know, I work hard each and every day, and my motivation is really simple and clear, which is – what is in the national interest? How do we strengthen our country? What’s important is that, as prime minister, you make decisions – every day, you make decisions. And what’s important is that you continue to learn every day, and continue to grow every day as well, as a person. T

hat’s what my mentor Tom Uren taught me – to learn each and every day, and to try and learn every day. That’s my approach towards leadership. The other approach that I have towards leadership that I’m really proud of is that Cabinet government is back.

We actually have proper processes. You know, the former government didn’t have coordinated processes for a whole lot of submissions. I assure you, we don’t have an overhead projector with PowerPoint presentations. We actually sit around. We have proper processes. And I trust my ministers to do their jobs as well, and to bring things forward to us.

And I think the capacity of the team is one of the big differences in this campaign as well. You’ve got senior people – but also you’ve got a backbencher and an assistant minister here as well, and people who have a capacity out there – don’t have to be hidden. The other mob have shadow cabinet ministers who haven’t been sightened. They’ve got people who aren’t allowed to leave their electorate, let alone talk to anyone. I’m really proud of my leadership style. I think my leadership style is one that has brought us unity – not unity by doing nothing. Unity by doing something.

SO NO REGRETS? NOOOOOOO RAGRETS?

Albanese:

I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that what’s important is that you learn. You learn each and every day. And that is what I do.