The latest Coalition scare campaign about Labor may scare itself more than voters (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 1 month ago by Ilandar@aussie.zone to c/australianpolitics@aussie.zone

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You need to only look at the modern crossbench, and the teals in particular, to see the prospect of a 2010 repeat is unlikely.

These modern independents aren't former Nationals blokes who have turned their back on their party.

They're modern women who couldn't see themselves in the party that once took their seats for granted.

"While the 2022 election might be heralded as a ‘breakthrough’ for the independents, the conditions for their election have been building over several decade," the Australian Election Study noted in 2022.

"Many of these changes are associated with voters being ‘less rusted on’ to the major political parties and becoming more independently minded in their political choices."

That's the problem with scare campaigns like the Coalition's. When you threaten voters with a minority government, that would require crossbench negotiations, some in the seats you're trying to win might be left thinking: "Oh, that sounds more preferable than you."

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[-] Ilandar@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

It's also just entirely possible that most of the teal voters you know about are from that 18 per cent. I'm not saying you're lying or even wrong about the people you know, but I'm definitely going to trust a study from a university over an anecdote for data of this size.

[-] dillekant@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sure, what I have is anecdata, but I will say the study is focused on the teal voters, whereas the people I'm talking about were members or organisers. They did door-knocking or sausage sizzles or similar.

For this comment, I've decided to go to the actual study rather than use the ABC's interpretation of it.

Firstly, the analysis is that there are fewer "rusted on" voters, which is consistent with what I'm trying to say. A bunch of rusted on LNP voters have become less rusted on, so to speak. The first half of the analysis broadly agrees with what I've been saying.

I don't know if ranked choice voting really works with "tactical voting". Someone would need to draw me a diagram, but overall the way most people vote is to put the candidate they like the most at the top, and the candidates they like the least at the bottom. If they distrust the majors, they put the majors "later". Basically, if you think the Teals are going to get up, but you want the Greens, you're still better off putting the Greens on top. There's a very small corner case where the a bunch of small parties can trade places based on a handful of votes but it's not common, and if you want the Greens but are happy with Teal, you'd still put them in the order you want. The study does say in the first half that people are way less likely to use HTV cards, which is consistent with what I'm trying to say.

I think what's happened is that they're looking at 2019, the Scomo era. By that era, the voters I've been talking about would already have shifted to Labor or the Greens as Option 1, something they would not actually want, they just wanted a Scomo Coalition even less. I think the Teals actually are the first preference here, and a lot of these guys used to vote LNP in maybe 2015.

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

I don’t know if ranked choice voting really works with “tactical voting”.

So, completely ignoring the reality on the ground and just talking about it hypothetically, yes, it is possible for tactical voting to play a part.

If we imagine Greens and Labor voters would (in an honest vote) preference each other, followed by Teal, followed by the LNP (and we'll ignore any 5th parties as irrelevant), and that many of the Teal voters you describe would have begrudgingly voted LNP 2nd rather than jump ship all the way to Labor or the Greens, then supposing native Teal votes are low enough, it is sensible for Labor and Greens voters to vote tactically.

If we imagine the first round of voting comes out as:

Greens 10% (a bit less than their national average)
Teals 20% (an easier round number, close to that 18% figure quoted below)
Labor 30%
LNP 40%

With honest voting distributed as described above, the Greens are eliminated first, taking Labor to 40%, and then the Teals are eliminated, giving the LNP a win with 60%.

If instead some portion of Greens and Labor vote tactically, the first round might end up as

Greens 5%
Labor 20%
Teals 35%
LNP 40%

Which sees first Greens, then Labor, eliminated, resulting in 60–40 Teal win.

It's an edge case and may or may not reflect the reality of how voters felt at the election. And tactical voting in IRV is very unreliable and requires much more specific knowledge of how other voters are going to vote in order for it to pay off than in FPTP. That same tactical voting could have hurt their more-preferred option if, say, the actual honest percentages had been

Greens 12%
Teals 15%
Labor 33%
LNP 40%

And 6% points of those Teals chose Labor, resulting in Labor getting 45% after Greens are eliminated, and then 51% after the Teals are. The strategic voting of Labor and Greens if this were the true preferences would have given it to the Teals despite Labor being the winner in an honest vote. Despite only a fairly small and difficult-to-predict change in the honest intentions.

Tagging @Ilandar@aussie.zone for interest's sake, as well as @hanrahan@slrpnk.net.

[-] dillekant@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

Thank you for the awesome analysis. To try and put what you said intuitively, I guess the "strategic" voting is to compromise as early as possible with a group whose "second choice" would be your last choice (and that is also a very popular first choice but only just popular enough to win). Does that sound correct?

So in your political compass, instead of picking the closest option to you on the compass with a Greens/Labor vote, you would pick a spot closer to the overall vibes of the electorate with a Teal vote to solidify that choice against an even further to the right choice which would win by a narrow margin?

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

Potentially, yes, especially in a seat like the Teals' ones. But as I said, it can also hurt you if you do it at the wrong time.

A great example of that would be the 3 seats in Brisbane that went Greens last election, which were extremely close races between Greens and Labor, and any Greens or Labor voter would have been wrong to try to compromise early to avoid the LNP winning.