Monday 23 February 2015

Will preferences decide the NSW election?

Who could forget how wrong the pollsters got it in Queensland, predicting a win for the Lieberals. The problem was that they distributed preferences in their polling as people did in the last Queensland election. However there was a very effective campaign up there to number every box and put the Lieberals last. It was those preferences that went very much in favour of Labor and very much against the Lieberals in the actual election, winning it for Labor.

Now we have the NSW state election coming up and the pollsters are still doing the same thing as they did in Queensland, distributing the preferences according to how they went in the last election when Labor was annihilated. It's seems to me it would be very unlikely that preferences would flow the same way as last time, which gives an entirely new picture in recent polling stats. There is also the Abbott factor.
Making things still more interesting is that all the numbers quoted above are based on previous election preferences, which blew pollsters nearly three points off course at the Queensland election. This is particularly significant given that Queensland and New South Wales alone share the optional preferential voting system, under which the previous-election method would seem to be especially unreliable. That is especially true when comparing a colossal electoral disaster for Labor with an election held when they are on the upswing – a situation which applies both in Queensland and New South Wales. 
On the primary vote, the Galaxy poll has the Coalition down two points to 43%, with Labor steady on 36% and the Greens down one to 10%. If preferences are allocated as per either the Queensland election result or the respondent-allocated preference flow from the Ipsos poll, the Coalition would either barely have its nose in front or be dead level, depending on how the wind was blowing with respect rounding. Which wouldn’t seem to bode too well so far as the short-term job security of the Prime Minister is concerned. more
 

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