VEC Fallout

The Pollbludger has done a fantastic job covering the Victorian state election and I am looking forward to his coverage of the NSW state election. What has been even more interesting has been the comments thread where the psephology community has gone ga ga over the VEC stuff up of the upper house result. Anyone interested in election statistics should read the comments pages on Pollbludger. However, if you are interested in just a brief rundown on the Vic election then you should read this from the democratic audit. It does not look favourably on the VEC.

In the end, after what seemed like a poor outcome, the Greens had an ok outcome. We won 3 upper house seats, had a small swing towards us in the overall vote, and narrowly missed out on 2 lower house seats and a fourth upper house seat. A good outcome overall.

However, the biggest loser out of the Vic election was the Christian right. Family First (FF) did not win a thing and only got 4% of the vote. Two reactions to this. First, the electorate has woken up to FF for what they are: a bunch of evangelical radicals that don't deserve parliamentary representation. Second, what was probably predicted, FF suffered from what the Greens suffered after a shock win (yes Steve Fielding was a shock in the Senate), the other political parties refuse to preference you. The challenge for FF, like it was for the Greens, is to increase ones vote to secure further positions, The Greens have done it, but I don't think FF will since the Liberals are recruiting from the Christian right. Good riddance.