10:23pm – I’m going to stop here. The Liberal vote in North Shore has climbed back from 40.3% to 41.4%, and they’re looking a bit more likely to hold on.
9:00pm – I think it’s very unlikely that independent candidate Kathryn Ridge will be able to win in Manly. She trails by 20.6% of the primary vote, with 33.8% of the vote left to be distributed as preferences. If 40% of preferences were to exhaust, it would be impossible for Ridge to win, even if no preferences flowed to the Liberal candidate.
8:55pm – We’re still waiting for one booth from North Shore and all of the special votes, some of which will come in tonight. As it currently stands, Corrigan trails Wilson by 15.3%, with 34.8% of the vote left to distribute. If 50% of these preferences exhaust, Corrigan will need 87.7% of the remaining votes.
8:46pm – My North Shore guide divided the seat into three parts: east, central and west. The east corresponds to the Mosman council area. Unsurprisingly, Carolyn Corrigan did best in that area, polling almost 30% compared to 24% in the centre and 19.5% in the west. The east was also the best area for the Liberal candidate, thanks to a lower vote for the Greens and other candidates.
8:41pm – In my pre-election guide, I divided the seat of Manly into three parts. The Liberal vote is at 48% in the south-west, compared to 41% in the north and 39.3% in the south-east. The south-west was already the best area for the Liberal Party, so the swings are similar in all three areas.
8:00pm – Apparently we won’t get a Liberal vs Independent preference count in either Manly or North Shore tonight – so while we will know more once more primary votes will be counted, we won’t have a definitive answer as to who will win.
7:40pm – In North Shore, Liberal candidate Felicity Wilson is polling only 40.4% of the vote. Independent candidate Carolyn Corrigan is on 25.8% and the Greens’ Justin Alick is on 16.8%. Corrigan is in a stronger position than Ridge in Manly since more of the anti-Liberal vote is concentrated with the independent, and thus she will need less preferences. Corrigan needs at least 14.6% of the vote out of 33.8% polling for the Greens and other minor candidates. Bear in mind that a lot of votes will exhaust, and some will flow to the Liberal Party, so this doesn’t look as easy as it first sounds.
7:37pm – In Manly, Liberal candidate James Griffin is polling 41.2% of the primary vote, ahead of independent candidate Kathryn Ridge on 22.5% and Greens candidate Clara Williams Roldan on 20.6%. If Ridge stays ahead of William Roldan, Ridge will need about 18% preferences from about 36% of the vote which has gone to the Greens and other candidates.
7:30pm – This won’t be a thorough election night coverage tonight, but I might post a few comments. Labor has comfortably retained the seat of Gosford. The Liberal Party in Manly and North Shore are competing with independents for the seat. The Liberal vote has dropped to around 41-42% in each seat, with a leading independent polling just over 20% as the main competitor. We don’t have any preference distributions between the Liberal and independent candidates yet, so we can only guess how preferences will flow.
As I type this, the Manly booths so far are all from the “Manly” end, and the Nth Shore booths are mostly from the “Mosman” end.
I would think the Lib vote will rise in Manly as the western booths come in. I don’t know about North Shore.
Kathryn Ridge did “just vote 1” how to vote cards so the Green vs Liberal 2CP is greatly exaggerated. It can still go either way in Manly.
These elections have big implications for Gladys’ own seat of Willoughby, let alone the rest of her government.
Such a pity that this process results in so many exhausted votes. I’m sure a big contributor is simple lack of understanding of the process. Many I spoke to at the Borth Sydney Boys booth thought that they could just put 1 in their candidates box and that the preferences would flow ala the Federal Senate voting. Nor is it compulsory to number every box like the Federal House of Repa ballot. Really just a ruse which suits the two major parties and nobody else..greens suffer, independents suffer..
That leaves one wondering which way they expected their preferences to flow. If they wanted to allocate further preferences, it surely wasn’t too much to ask that they specifically enumerate them.
The old Senate system of a ‘vote 1’ captured by the parties to be reallocated at their whim was such an appalling concept that it’s now been scrapped. Nor is the House of Representatives formality rule, which bins ballots with partial preferences, much of a solution.