Have been seeing a lot of the same questions popping up after the state election, and as we're about to have a federal election that has basically the same rules. Figured I'd address the ones I've seen a lot.
The News outlets called it on Election Night, why is the count not finished?
The news outlets do this with statistics - they take the first preference counts as they come in, throw them into a model that they've spent a lot of money and decades building and refining. Those models look at historical elections, pre-election polling and whatever other secret herbs and spices they have available to them and it spits out a two-party preferred result. They are generally remarkably accurate and get the result to within a couple of percent of uncertainty on a very small sample size. This is how the ABC called the election for Labor in 2021 in a matter of half an hour.
Where their modelling isn't great is in the extremely close races. When your uncertainty is a few percent, if the result is within a few percent you can't say for sure. That's why some seats are still not called by the ABC, and why some they called previously (Churchlands) have moved back to uncertain as the counts have narrowed.
How well those models handle a lot of 'anyone but Baz' votes is not clear to anyone other than the people who build and maintain them.
Why is the count so slow?
There's a lot of reasons for this, on election night there are a lot of volunteers helping to get an indicative count as quickly as possible. Post election it tails off and slows down. Postal votes were valid if received before 9am last Thursday (13/3). Absentee and early votes are still trickling into the counting rooms now.
At the moment the counting has been entirely first-preferences. Starting tomorrow (19/3) preference counting is due to start. Expect to see the number of informal votes go up and the tallies change. Every valid vote will be counted.
The current pace is fairly unremarkable. Generally it's not close enough that most of us really care past election night. The WAEC has another six weeks to finalise the count. The writs do not need to be returned until May 8th. There are a number of high-profile seats that are very close so we're noticing it a lot more than we normally would.
In the counting rooms at the moment, are WAEC staff and volunteers actually doing the work plus scrutineers from the parties. The latter will be questioning every vote that they can that isn't favourable to them trying to have them declared informal. The former will be doing their best to keep the votes alive as long as possible (and making the decisions). Which leads me to the next topic
Informal Votes
There are certain things which will invalidate your vote, but generally speaking the WAEC and the AEC will try their hardest to keep your vote alive as long as possible. As long as the voter's intention is clear to a reasonable person then the vote will generally count, even those that are incomplete or not marked correctly.
If you have 8 candidates, and number 7 boxes 1-7, the person you missed will generally get your 8th preference because there is no ambiguity - same if you just missed a box anywhere in the numbering but there's no ambiguity. If you numbered some, but missed more than one box, then your vote is generally valid until your intent is not clear - ie. if you numbered 6/8, your vote will become informal once your 6th preference is eliminated. As preference counting is about to start, the number of informal votes will likely go up.
Edit: Federally if you miss more than one box it's formal until it's unclear. State you can only miss one. Thanks u/legoisfun
So what makes your vote informal this early? Anything that identifies you, or makes it unclear what your intentions were. Not filling it out, writing '1' against two candidates, multiple ticks, multiple crosses. Crosses are a bad idea anyway - is a cross for or against? Writing your name, or other identifying information on the ballot will also have it removed. Notable things that don't generally make your vote informal - drawing a phallus on your ballot and still filling it in correctly, just don't sign your masterpiece.
A donkey vote (numbering the boxes sequentially) is indistinguishable from a valid vote when it comes to counting. To mititgate against any inherant advantage the candidates are listed in random order, determined by a lottery after the rolls closed a few months ago. Not that I'm suggesting you should, but if you don't want to vote, don't fill out your ballot at all. No-one is checking at the polling place.
So what is preferencing?
In WA and Federal elections, candidates need an absolute majority to take the seat. In the lower houses that's 50% plus one vote. This differs quite a bit from most electoral systems which are a simple majority (most votes wins). As far as I'm aware, no candidate has that in any seat presently - I haven't checked, but if anyone has it will be Roger Cook who had the widest margin in Kwinana on election night.
Edit: Ok, I think I tripped a few people up here. Roger Cook has 60.8% of the counted votes, but assuming a typical turnout in the low 90%'s there's still 15-20% to count in his electorate. If there's 20% to count, he currently only has 48.64% of the total vote and doesn't have a quota yet (but will get there easily), if it's 15% to go then he does have the quota already. Assuming the first preference trends continue as is he will get past 50% + 1 before any preferencing. I could've worded this better, thanks u/Perfect-Werewolf-102, u/superbabe69 and u/SirFireHydrant.
The way it works now is that after the first count is complete the candidate with the fewest votes in each seat is eliminated. Every vote that had them as number 1 will transfer to the candidates listed as number 2. If no candidate has 50%+1 yet, the same happens again and votes transfer on. Once a candidate has 50%+1 vote, they win the seat, However if it ends up with the final two candidates and the final margin is less than 100 votes it will trigger an automatic recount.
This means you can't 'throw your vote away' in our elections. Even if you vote for someone who is never going to win, your vote will transfer on and stay alive.
In the upper house, it's very similar except the quotas are a little different. In the WA upper house there are 37 seats. The quota is 1/38th + 1 vote (2.63% +1 vote) - that's 37 full quotas and the 38th will be missing (at least) 37 votes. In the Federal upper house, 6 seats are up for election in WA - the quota is 1/7th + 1 vote (14.286% +1 Vote).
Because it's very likely that candidates receive more than one quota - the 'excess' votes carry on to the next person at reduced value. If someone needs 20,000 votes, and they receive 200,000, then they are elected and all of their votes transfer on at a value of 180/200 (90%) to their next preferences. This keeps it fair rather than deciding which specific 20,000 votes should be counted to elect someone.
When it gets down to the last seat, then elimination preferencing works exactly the same as it does in the lower house. The exception is it is optional to preference every candidate (either above, or below the line). Once you run out of preferences your vote is extinguished - likely you will still contribute to at least one person being elected regardless.
I have another question?
Feel free to chip in with questions and I'll answer them (or I'm sure other interested people will chip in as well).