Di Bell

Independent Di Bell and Greens candidate Lynton Vonow now hold more votes between them than Liberal candidate Jamie Briggs.

Tally at 3.30pm Thursday Sept 18, 2008

Vonow                         18,640
Briggs                          31,545
Day                              9,527
Bell                              14,548

“The idea behind preferential voting,” says Professor Diane Bell, “is that every vote counts. If your first preference is eliminated, your second is counted.”

Di Bell, who ran as an Independent in the Mayo by-election of September 6, 2008 has been watching the vote counting with keen interest. “As a candidate I can’t be in the tally room and have to rely on the AEC online virtual tally room or feed back from scrutineers,” she says. “The results are fascinating.”

It may surprise the Australian population to learn that the Liberal candidate, Mr Jamie Briggs, has not yet won. He garnered 41.27% of first preferences and thus far with some 896 added votes has not done well out of preferences of the seven candidates eliminated thus far [in order of elimination King IND, Keizer ON, Barons CCE, Castrique DEM, McCabe DLP, Spragg IND, Brewerton IND].

On the other hand, Greens candidate Lynton Vonow has somewhere in the vicinity of 2,790 Independent Di Bell 2,465 and Family First Bob Bob Day, 1060.

In part the confusion has been that existing models for analysing the vote employ a two party preferred model. In the case of Mayo, this has become a two candidate preferred model. Thus it is forecast that Mr Briggs has 53.06% of the vote and on September 6 he claimed victory. The media stopped reporting the election.

“But,” says Bell, “if every vote counts, shouldn’t we pay attention to how votes are distributed? The Mayo by-election is not your standard two horse race.” Together Vonow and Bell hold 33,188 and their preferences are likely to flow substantially to each other.

“It will come down to where Family First preferences go,” says Bell and the Liberal candidate will need to get a much higher percent of them that he has from other candidates.

Still counting.

A glorious warm sunny day and time to reclaim the garden, get on the tractor, slash the grass along the road, mulch, harvest the broccoli and prepare the ground for summer veggies.  Last year, despite the lack of rain, the tomatoes, silver beet and zucchini were a great success.  This year maybe the beans will survive.  The water tanks are full and with careful management should last through summer.

By mid-morning there were four friends working with Di and when lunch time rolled around, it was a garden salad around the big round table overlooking the river and more stories from the campaign, some about prepolling and some about election day. There’s a book somewhere in all this.

The wind came up around 3.00pm. There’s rain on the way.

Over the past two days the counting has continued at the AEC and none of the candidates has the 50% plus one vote required to be declared elected.  As Di Bell predicted weeks ago, this election will go down to preferences and we are yet to see how closely electors followed the how to vote cards of the candidates. 

One of the striking features of the count is the low turn out. In the Federal Election of November 2007, the turnout was 95.88%.  The AEC virtual tally room shows this year, in an electorate with an enrolment of 97, 583, a turnout of only 78.76%. 

If over 20% of the electorate didn’t vote, we might ask how representative this vote really is?  Why did more than one on five electors not vote? To be sure some didn’t know they had to vote. “Do I have to vote?” was the most frequently asked question on the campaign trail. One wonders what these electors thought all the corflutes were doing on the stobie poles along the roads of Mayo?  

Some electors chose not the vote. We certainly heard that people were frustrated that they had to return to the ballot box so soon after the last Federal election.  We also heard that people were angry that Labor was not fielding a candidate.

A further feature of this election is the high Informal vote which according to the AEC virtual tally room stands at 4.70%. By comparison in 2007, the Informal vote was 2.76% and that was a drop of 1.88% from the previous election in 2004. The large field may have confused some electors. Some may have chosen to vote informal. Others may have been confused by how to vote cards.

What does the low turnout and high informal vote say about the state of civics education in Australia? What are the consequences for representative democracy?

If we add the Informal vote and the no-show voters together, we have an election being decided on the basis of less than 75% of the electorate. Is this what compulsory voting looks like in 2008? 

Di Bell and her kitchen cabinet will be meeting tonight to discuss the election, lessons learned and plans for the future.

With just under 70% of the electorate’s votes now counted, there are 3 strong contenders for the Seat of Mayo: a liberal, a green and Di Bell! No one has 50% +1 vote: Mayo is now a “marginal” seat.

We are still awaiting pre-polling votes and postal votes — which could mean another 15-20% additional returns. Despite news reports to the contrary this is an election that will be decided on preferences! And those have yet to be counted!

Don’t believe the hype — Mayo is still in play!

What a glorious morning! Clear sky, warm sun, Spring is coming. The team was up bright and early, the packs for the booth were ready, the routes were all marked out. Di’s itinerary was finalised. The ute was off to Mt Barker with Di while other members of the team were at Mt Barker, Victor Harbor and Stirling for prepolling. The most frequently asked question: Is voting compulsory?

Prepolling has been quite an experience and we will have more to say of the irregularities at a future date. This week it has been us, the Liberals and Family First there in person to hand out “How to Vote” cards and the Greens have had a stand with their material. Mostly everyone has been collegial, swapping amusing anecdotes and some friendships have formed.  Today there was some vandalism of materials at one booth and our volunteers were denied access to toilets by local storekeepers of a different political hue: a good argument for maintaining public infrastructure and not privatising essential services. Fortunately, there are still public facilities in most country towns.

Di was greeted warmly by electors in Barker: many had already voted and told her how pleased they were to have an intelligent woman running for Mayo. A number of Liberal voters told her they were voting for her because they approved of her stand and campaign. Everyone likes the ute.

Channel 9 and Channel 7 arrived but the Liberal candidate was no where to be seen. Di talked with the reporters who waited a while and then relocated at the office of the candidate. Di later talked to Channel 2.

At 6.00pm we packed up our goods and headed for Milang where the team was still hard at work with schedules for tomorrow. Pizza for tea while we watched Stateline. Go team! Go Di! What great coverage. There was Di in her studio with her latest book, on her beach pointing out the water levels and dead fresh water mussels, and talking about the campaign. Dr Haydon Manning offered his analysis of the election: too close to call but there could be an upset. It will all be about preferences.

We missed the item of SBS but caught a glimpse of Channel 7.

Di and her team and all the volunteers will gather at the Mt Barker Bowling Club from 6.00pm onwards. Join us and help us celebrate a remarkable campaign.