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How the election polls got it so wrong

The federal election has been run and won, and many are asking the question as to why the polls did not predict Labor’s thumping win. A minority Labor government was the popular pollsters’ outcome, or a slender Labor majority at best.

But Labor trounced the Coalition with 91 seats won to 42 at the time of writing, to now take up sixty per cent of the lower house chamber. And it achieved this with only a little more than a third of the primary vote. In fact its primary vote was up just two percentage points from its 2022 win, to an underwhelming 34.7%, yet it has added 14 seats to its previous majority.

Compare this to Julia Gillard’s 2010 38.0% first preference vote, which only secured minority government. Or to Tony Abbott’s emphatic majority in 2013, requiring a significant 45.6% primary vote to win 90 seats. There is a clear upward trend in the ratio of seats won to primary vote, for the victor.

And with the Coalition’s share of the primary vote a clear rejection at just 32.2%, support for the two major parties is plummeting. 

We also saw at this election, 138 of the 150 seats decided by preferences, including 15 seats that flipped on preferences after being behind on the primary vote. That, with the Labor two-party-preferred vote a whopping 20 percentage points up on its primary vote to 54.9%, reveals the extent to which preference votes contributed to the Coalition rout.

The significance of preference vote flows from minor parties and independent candidates is now more pronounced than ever. Which certainly creates havoc for pollsters. Trying to predict outcomes from national primary vote swings is becoming increasingly more difficult. 

The problem is, polls focus on primary votes. But if future polling is to become more accurate, it needs to be recognised that preferences decide outcomes today, and polling methodologies must evolve accordingly. 


Source: Australian Electoral Commission

But preference flows are not linear, and can vary significantly between electorates depending on the candidate and party profile. Which means a lack of data and modelling to accurately forecast vote flows. Unless more sophistication is introduced into the polling process, we should continue to expect the unexpected in future elections.

The fact that Labor was able to secure its huge majority with just over a third of the primary vote, highlights its ability to attract second, third, and lower order preference votes. And being able to jump over leading candidates after primary votes, including in Peter Dutton’s own seat of Dickson, displays a unique preference effect whereby the 'least disliked' candidate can prevail over the 'most liked'.

One interpretation of Labor’s low primary vote converting to a significant two-party-preferred result, is that a broad left of centre bloc exists in the electorate after distributing preferences. Differing political parties and groups exist because of different ideologies and values at a primary level, but can be aligned at higher levels on shared ideologies. And this election result reflects a more substantial alignment on the left side of politics via Greens, independents, and minor party preference flows.

This is the uniting effect of preferential voting: the bringing together of entities on a similar ideological page. Resulting this time in not just a Labor victory, but also a shift in aggregate voter sentiment on the political spectrum.

For the Coalition, the implications of the election results are such that it must shore up its base and lift its primary support. And at the same time appeal beyond its base to strengthen the preference equation. The challenge will be to determine to what extent it must pitch a more centrist approach to raise its competitiveness in a preferential voting system, without compromising its core political values.

A competitive opposition is essential for a healthy democracy to keep the government of the day in check, and be ready to step in as an alternative government.

For Labor, even with a supersized majority, it must not stray too far from centrist politics lest it weakens the majority bloc it heads up that has coalesced under preference votes.

The merits or otherwise of our preferential voting system have long been debated. The vagaries, challenges, and issues it throws at pollsters, voters, and political entities are intriguing, but must be adapted to, because it has been part of our voting system for a long time now, and it isn’t going away any time soon.

 

Tony Dillon is a freelance writer and former actuary.

 

6 Comments
AlanB
May 19, 2025

We should assign zero confidence to polling companies because some time ago they switched to using panels of people when it became no longer feasible to use old style phone or street polling techniques. People apply to join these polling company panels to earn redeemable rewards, vouchers or prizes in exchange for completing surveys and polling questionnaires. There are significant problems with self selected panels being unrepresentative of the general population in terms of age, location, gender and socio-economic status. Such panels can also be stacked by parties. Sample sizes are small. Panel poll results are weighed by polling companies to achieve what they believe are representative opinions, which means some opinions will count more than others. The polling business model is fraught with known flaws and potential faults and so inevitably the results are predictably inaccurate and unreliable. Yet media companies continue to pay these polling companies for useless polls, slavishly reporting imagined and misleading trends. As predicted in this article, already unreliable polls will become even less reliable with the vagaries of preferential voting. The only certainty of polls is their unreliability.

Phil Kneale
May 18, 2025

The problem with the preferential system is that it's so easily rorted. Remember the "preference whisperer" (not sure if he's still around) who advised small parties & independents how to game the system in the Senate.

In the House of Reps, most voters blindly follow their favoured party's "how-to-vote" card, regardless of whether it aligns with their own preferences. Many people would be shocked to learn who their vote ended up going to.

Varo
May 18, 2025

Preferences should be optional not compulsory. There are candidates one would not vote for. Under the current system we have no choice. For your vote to count you have tick all boxes even if you think one or more candidates are not the person of your choice.

Steve
May 16, 2025

Gee. Preferences made a difference. Big deal. Did any pollster not expect the large contingent of green & teal voters (first preference) would not send their next preference to Labor? When the major parties only get low 30's primary vote, of course the preferences matter. The only surprise is that the experts were so unprepared? Honestly, who pays these clowns.

Chris
May 16, 2025

The time has come for the ballot paper to include (if you choose to) a box that can be ticked "No preferences to be allocated"

JohnS
May 16, 2025

If you want to not use your vote to its full value, that is a possibility in council and state elections

But, if you don't allocate preferences, then you are not using your vote to its full value. If your first choice doesn't get in the final two candidates, then your vote is wasted.

By allocating preferences, you give a chance for your second choice to be elected, without preferences, you don't get that added value.

Be my guest to give away part of the value of your vote, but I ALWAYS allocate preferences, so that i can (for example) show my support for a candidate that won't win, but who I like some of their policies, before preferencing either labor or liberal ahead of the other (the most likely highest vote candidates)

People fought hard for our right to vote, we shouldn't diminish that value (or worst, as in america, not even turn up to vote)

 

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