With the group voting tickets now published for the South Australian Legislative Council election, and newspoll and galaxy providing reasonably up-to-date polling of the electorate, it is possible to run a simulation of this weekend's Legislative Council election. In fact, we can run two, one for newspoll and one for galaxy.
Results
If Newspoll is accurate, next weekend will result in the Liberals winning 5 seats, Labor 4 and the Greens 2. If Galaxy is accurate, result will be Liberals 5, Labor 4, Greens 1, Family First 1.
Methodology
Taking the declared candidates, the group voting tickets lodged with the South Australian electoral commission, and the predicted vote for each candidate provided by the latest polls, I simulate the election day by counting the votes in a manner similar to the one used on the day. Candidates with a quota 8.33% are elected to a seat. If, after electing all candidates with a quota, there are seats unfilled, we eliminate the candidate with the lowest number of votes. These votes are then distributed to their next preference. We keep eliminating candidates until somebody has quota, and eventually all the seats are filled. I don't do split tickets very well, but then this is just all idle speculation.
Newspoll
Newspoll has the Greens on 12%, Labor on 36%, Liberals on 39% and a smattering of minor parties (including Family First) on 1%.
On these figures, the first 9 seats are elected on quota, in order of Liberals, Labor, Liberals, Labor, Liberals, Labor, Liberals, Greens, Labor.
At this point, no candidates have quota, so the candidates with the lowest votes start getting eliminated.
A sprinkling of votes from independents and micros such as CARS, Dignity and SA Change push David Winderlich over the Australian Democrats, who get eliminated at count #377.
The next major elimination is when Labor's final candidate is eliminated. Their crucial votes flow to the Green's #2 candidate, which puts them out-of-reach of Winderlich, who is eliminated.
With Winderlich gone, the Greens are the main beneficiaries, gaining important votes from Winderlich, the Democrats and FREE Australia. The Liberals pick up some votes but not enough to help them. The Greens pick up Seat 10.
With Labor gone, the Greens' surplus flows to the Liberals, along with votes from the Democrats, FREE Australia and Gamers4Croydon, which pushes them above Family First, who received final preferences from Labor. Family First never catches the last Liberal candidate, who is elected to the 11th and final seat.
This gives the Liberals 5 seats, Labor 4 and the Greens 2.
Galaxy
Galaxy has the Greens lower than newspoll on 10%, Labor the same on 36% and the Liberals on 42%. Galaxy has Family First on 6% of the vote. A large amount. The 'Other' vote is much lower than in newspoll.
The count starts the same, with the Liberals, Labor, Liberals, Labor, Liberals, Labor, Liberals, Greens, Labor elected to the first nine seats in that order.
Then we start eliminating. It's a bloodbath at the lower end as candidates with few votes are eliminated.
By count 370, with most of the sub <0.5% candidates eliminated, the second Greens candidate is neck-in-neck with Winderlich on 1.5% of the vote versus 1.3%.
The elimination of Dignity for Disability pushes Winderlich above the Australian Greens, but with Gamers4Croydon votes a few counts later, the Greens are pushed right back in. An interesting choice of Gamers4Croydon to preference the Greens so highly, presumably at the cost of a better deal with other micros, and it would be worth hearing lead candidate Chris Prior's thoughts about it.
However, both Winderlich and the Greens are minnows compared to Family First, who now vacuum up DLP, Climate Sceptics and Save the Unborn votes, putting them only a few percentage shy of a seat.
The Democrats go to Winderlich, Save the RAH goes to Family First.
The Greens, stalled near the bottom of the table, receive some much needed Labor votes.
Now, at count 381, the Shooters Party is eliminated, which frees up Shooters Party, One Nation and the Fishing and Lifestyle party votes for Family First, which pushes them over quota and gets their candidate Robert Brokenshire, Seat 10.
Now the Family First surplus goes to Liberals, along with Save RAH, Shooters, One Nation and the DLP. Winderlich, sitting on half a quota, has slim pickings at this point, and so Rita Bouras from the Liberals picks up the 11th seat.
This leaves a result of Liberals 5, Labor 4, Greens 1, Family First 1.
Conclusions
From the polls and the way preferences flow, it appears that the final seat is a contest between the Greens and Family First.
However, I have been running a batch of 20,000 simulations with the votes of the parties distributed around their polling level using a gaussian distribution, and initial results show that there could be an upset in the offing ... more details soon, but basically Winderlich is possibly a chance.
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