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Speaker 1: Welcome to Ask Fear and Greed, where we answer questions

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Speaker 1: about business, investing, economics, politics and more. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and hello.

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Speaker 2: Sean Al Michael soho on.

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Speaker 1: Today's question falls very much into the latter category of

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Speaker 1: politics and it feels very timely because we are what

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Speaker 1: forty eight hours away from polling day and the question

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Speaker 1: is how other votes counted? So if we assume that

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Speaker 1: everyone's voted, how then are they counted? How do we

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Speaker 1: decide the next prime minister?

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Speaker 2: Wow? We watch TV and we see whaten Anthony Green?

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Speaker 2: And what's the worst cithologist. I'm trying to think of.

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Speaker 1: The yes, yes, someone who does election guru.

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Speaker 2: I can't think of it. Basically, all votes are counted

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Speaker 2: near the polling station and the idea is that they're

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Speaker 2: counted on the night of the election. Now, according to

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Speaker 2: the Australian Electoral Commission, the House of Representative votes are

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Speaker 2: counted first and it includes a preference count followed by

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Speaker 2: two candidate preferred counts. So basically they put all the

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Speaker 2: votes into piles. They work out in most electorates there's

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Speaker 2: going to be two that are leading the way and

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Speaker 2: what they do is then go to the preferences for

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Speaker 2: the others. Now, in some electrics it's too close to

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Speaker 2: the three cornered race or three legged stool, whatever it is,

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Speaker 2: they actually have the three people running, and that is

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Speaker 2: a lot trickier and we won't get a result then.

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Speaker 2: But generally the AEC starts counting at six pm. By

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Speaker 2: seven point thirty eight o'clock, some of the returns start

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Speaker 2: coming in. Now as the returns come in, all those

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Speaker 2: folk who are experts at this on the TV stations,

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Speaker 2: they start predicting based on what happened three years ago

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Speaker 2: and what happened six years ago about how those sorts

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Speaker 2: of where the account will end up.

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Speaker 1: And it's all made more complicated by preferential voting, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it could be a lot simpler if it

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Speaker 1: was just you just had to put a one next

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Speaker 1: to an individual candidate. But by having to number every

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Speaker 1: box on the Lower House voting slip, it does mean

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Speaker 1: then that the counting is a slightly slower process. You

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Speaker 1: would imagine where they do need to go and count

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Speaker 1: the first preferences and then knock out kind of the

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Speaker 1: lower the people who got the fewest votes and then

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Speaker 1: kind of reallocate them based on where the second preference

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Speaker 1: for each person's vote went, and then so on and

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Speaker 1: so forth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what's interesting this year is that pre pole counts

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Speaker 2: are going to be really large. I mean I think

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Speaker 2: it was twenty two million or so, sorry, not twenty

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Speaker 2: two percent. About four million people have actually pre polled,

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Speaker 2: and generally prepole counting starts being displayed about nine point

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Speaker 2: thirty PM Eastern State's time, and that goes through quite

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Speaker 2: late in the night. By nine point thirty, you would

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Speaker 2: think we will have a winner or a potential winner.

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Speaker 2: If we don't and the pre polls counting kind of

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Speaker 2: kicks in, that will certainly give us a fair indication

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Speaker 2: of where we're going to land. Now, whether or not

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Speaker 2: there's an overall result on an election night, generally there is.

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Speaker 2: The AEC is extremely good at I think it's every

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Speaker 2: ninety seconds or something. They throw out information for the

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Speaker 2: TV stations to pick up and it's their official numbers.

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Speaker 2: But sometimes there was an election a few years ago,

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Speaker 2: we it really took quite some time, but mostly in Australia,

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Speaker 2: by the time you go to bed, you know, is it.

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Speaker 1: That the postal votes separate to the pre poll votes

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Speaker 1: where you can line up at a polling station and

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Speaker 1: vote in advance the postal votes, which are all submitted

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Speaker 1: via mail in the weeks leading up to it. They

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Speaker 1: were always I might be wrong with this, but counted last.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I think that is true.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And that's why often there was a trend observed

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Speaker 1: where the postal votes often went quite well for the

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Speaker 1: Conservative Party. And that might be a trend that is

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Speaker 1: no longer relevant now, but often because it was perhaps

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Speaker 1: older voters which are rural voters yep, indeed, that are

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Speaker 1: not able to get to a polling place on voting day,

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Speaker 1: so they would do a postal vote instead. And so

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Speaker 1: that's why there's kind of you'll hear the commentary on

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Speaker 1: election night and they're talking about the fact, oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: the postal votes are still to come, which can benefit

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Speaker 1: often the conservative candidate elect.

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Speaker 2: They've got up to thirteen days to be counted, so

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Speaker 2: if a postal vote comes in thirteen days later, it

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Speaker 2: will still be counted. So often you don't get the

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Speaker 2: final numbers till a month after the election.

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Speaker 1: It can be a very very long pro And remember

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Speaker 1: the last time we had minority government when it was

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Speaker 1: the labor labor minority and in the end, they needed

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Speaker 1: the support of robo shot and Tony Windsor and Andrew

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Speaker 1: Wilkie in order to get to get across the line.

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Speaker 1: And that wasn't decided anywhere near voting day and not

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Speaker 1: that was days of negotiations afterwards. So it can be

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Speaker 1: quite a protracted process.

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Speaker 2: The other cool thing is that every ballot paper is

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Speaker 2: actually counted twice to make sure they get it right.

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Speaker 2: That's a good point. Yeah, and so most electorates you

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Speaker 2: find the winner, but some of those other ones to

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Speaker 2: very close that second count really matters.

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Speaker 1: We do have an awesome system, really.

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Speaker 2: We do. When you think about voting is unreal.

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Speaker 1: When you think about it, the fact that your vote

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Speaker 1: will count. It is not as though it just gets

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Speaker 1: discarded because he voted for someone who didn't get across

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Speaker 1: the line. Your vote actually does count, and you know

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Speaker 1: that if you vote, your voter is going to be counted,

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Speaker 1: and which is something that can't necessarily be said in

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Speaker 1: other countries around the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, anyway, that's.

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Speaker 1: A very positive way to finish. I think that's it.

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Speaker 1: I think we've answered the question adequately there.

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Speaker 2: Sean, and I think so.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Michael.

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Speaker 1: Remember, if you've got your own question that you would

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Speaker 1: get it, we will answer it. I'm Michael Thompson and

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Speaker 1: this is ask Fear and Greed