A cliff-hanger has developed for the second Labor seat in Molonglo.
A mere three votes separated sitting MLA Marion Reilly from Steve Garth at the end of the day’s counting yesterday.
The result is so close that Electoral Commissioner Phil Green ordered a recount of Ms Reilly’s and Dr Garth’s votes before moving to the next stage of the count which would be to exclude Ms Reilly who trails Dr Garth 5212 to 5209, after the distribution of other Labor candidates’ preferences.
The Greens’ Kerrie Tucker was officially elected third in Molonglo yesterday, behind the Liberals’ Kate Carnell and Gary Humphries.
Labor’s Ted Quinlan, Independent Michael Moore and Liberal Greg Cornwell are now assured of the remaining seats.
If errors are found in the recount, Mr Green will order a full recount of all the Labor vote before moving to the next stage.
Ms Reilly’s resurgence into contention appears to have come from a vote-for-women effect.
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In counting yesterday, three of the seven Labor candidates were eliminated. The first was Chris Flaherty. His preferences went very strongly to Ted Quinlan (about half of them) and nearly all the rest were evenly divided among the remaining Labor candidates. Mr Quinlan got the lion’s share because when Mr Flaherty appeared at the top of the Labor column in the Robson rotated ballot papers, Mr Quinlan was second. A lot of Labor voters just went to the Labor column and marked it one to seven as it was presented to them. This has been called the party linear vote.
Second out was John O’Keefe. This time the party linear vote favoured Dr Garth, who got a bit under half of the preferences and the rest spread evenly.
Then Tania McMurtry was excluded. The party linear vote favoured Mr Quinlan, with 1177 votes, but the rest did not spread evenly. Rather Ms O’Reilly picked up 893 McMurtry preferences, indicating a significant number of voters giving a female preferences.
This runs contrary to some early Labor comments that the Hare Clark system is bad for women.
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The female-vote effect is seen in other counting. Liberal Jacqui Burke consistently got more preferences than male Liberals from excluded female candidates and the surplus from successful female candidates than would otherwise be expected.
Similarly, when Democrat Jane Errey was excluded, more of her preferences went to female Liberal and Labor candidates than would otherwise be expected.
However, the preferences of Jacqui Rees on her exclusion went across the spectrum, but most to Michael Moore, the Greens and Democrats with only 12 per cent exhausting.
The preferences of Osborne Group candidate Chris Uhlmann went to the Liberals (30 per cent), Mr Moore (20 per cent) and Labor (20 per cent) and the rest exhausted.
Michael Moore is still 789 votes shy of a quota. But Labor or Liberal preferences will push him over.
So the final Assembly is: Liberal (7): Kate Carnell (M), Gary Humphries (M), Greg Cornwell (M), Brendan Smyth (B), Trevor Kaine (B), Bill Stefaniak (G), Harold Hird (G). Labor (6): Ted Quinlan (M), Steve Garth (M) or Marion Reilly (M), Bill Wood (B), John Hargreaves (B), Wayne Berry (G), Jon Stanhope (G). Osborne Group (2): Paul Osborne (B) and Dave Rugendyke (G). Green Kerrie Tucker (M). Independent Michael Moore (M).