By-election for the seat in Molonglo vacated by Kate Carnell got under way yesterday. People enrolled in Molonglo will not vote, simply because they have already voted – in February 1998.
Under the ACT’s Hare-Clark system we do not have a new election every time a seat is vacated. Rather we have a count-back of the vote cast at the previous general election. The Electoral Commissioner looks at all the ballot papers that helped elect the vacating member. All the unsuccessful candidates at the previous general election can stand for the vacancy. The aim is to see who among the unsuccessful candidates is the next most favoured candidate of voters who had elected the vacating member.
In this instance, the commissioner will look only at the 25,379 ballot papers that were marked Carnell 1. The preferences indicated on those ballot papers are then followed through to the first available standing candidate. So a ballot marked Carnell 1, Humphries 2, Cornwell 3, Tolley 4, O’Keefe 4, Burke 5, Louttit 6, would be a vote for Burke because Humphries and Cornwell are already elected and O’Keefe and Tolley who were unsuccessful in 1998 are not standing for this vacancy. A ballot marked Carnell 1, Louttit 2, would be a vote for Louttit.
(The original 1998 votes of the contesting candidates, bear in mind, are not part of this process.)
If a candidate gets over 50 per cent of the available vote, he or she is elected. Otherwise the candidates with the least vote is excluded and preferences distributed, House of Representatives style.
Of people who put Carnell 1, 86.3 per cent put a Liberal as second preference. So it is almost certain that a Liberal will win the seat. Only two of the four unsuccessful Liberals are standing – Jacqui Burke and John Louttit.
We can get a guide as to who is likely to win by reviewing what happened in 1998. At a general election when seven members are being selected for Molonglo, a successful candidate needs a quota of one eighth of the vote plus one. In 1998 that was 9459. Carnell got 25,379, meaning a surplus of 15,920. That surplus was distributed down according to the prefer
ences of those who voted for her first. Fifty-two per cent went to Humphries. Another 34 per cent went to the other five Liberals and 14 per cent went to non-Liberals.
The surplus is distributed by distributing all of the ballot papers, but at a reduced fraction to account for the 9459 votes used up to elect Carnell. By reversing the discount factor, you can work out where all of Carnell’s second preferences went.
A lot of her vote gave Humphries his quota with still some left over, which in turn were distributed, so once again you can work out where the third preferences went for those who voted Carnell 1, Humphries 2.
Burke is in front, but it is by no means a lay-down misere. She has about 20 per cent of available vote. Louttit has about 13 per cent. Nick Tolley who is not standing has about 19 per cent. Aouad (the other Liberal not standing) was on 11 per cent. The rest is sitting under Cornwell’s name (never been distributed in 1998) or gone to non-Liberals. Most of the latter would exhaust without coming back to the two contensting Liberals.
So the count back is going to be decided on the ballots sitting under Cornwell’s name and preferences from the non-standing Aouad and Tolley.
Tolley was a Young Liberal, to the extent there is a youth vote, you would expect Burke to get his preferences. But the preferences from votes that went to Cornwell and Aouad might stay with the middle-aged, male business arm of the party, namely Louttit.
Certainly that his how the actual votes fell when Tolley and Aouad were excluded in the 1998 count. But how the vote that elected Cornwell goes is anyone’s guess, but it is more likely to favour Louttit as the longer-standing Liberal. It was never distributed in 1998 because he was never excluded (he was elected) and (unlike Carnell) he certainly did not get a quota with a surplus to be distributed which would give a guide as to where they would end up.
This count-back is going to be a close-run thing. Though Chief Minsiter Humphries has indicated Burke is most likely to win, Louttit is not out of the picture.