On Saturday night the Electoral Commission of Queensland got it wrong!
Palpably wrong!
Palpably wrong!
Totally wrong!
All in the seat of Lockyer!
All in the seat of Lockyer!
Even after One Nation's Pauline Hanson ran second and the ALP ran third, the ECQ's official but notional distribution of preferences were those of Pauline Hanson - principally to the Katter Australian Party (KAP) candidate David Neuendorf.
It was Neuendorf's preferences (and those below him) which should have been distributed.
This resulted in high farce with an incorrect notional distribution between the LNP's Ian Rickuss and Pauline Hanson.
The ECQ put up figures which had Ian Rickuss receiving fewer votes after the distribution of preferences than he received in total primary votes - something which is mathematically impossible, despite the ECQ's protestations in today's online Gatton Star report (below) where it claims no result is declared until all mathematical possibilities are eliminated.
But it's apparently OK to have mathematical impossibilities during the course of the count!
The ECQ has let down the people of Lockyer and the people of Queensland.
In the tightest of all possible statewide results where a hung parliament is likely, the ECQ should have given much more attention before Saturday as to who would be the leading candidates in Lockyer on election night.
Students of Politics 101 could have easily guessed the final count would be between Ian Rickuss and Pauline Hanson.
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| Dad's Army could have done a better job than the ECQ. |
And even when the ECQ's notional Saturday night distribution didn't make any mathematical sense, they persisted in putting it online and leaving it there until noon on Sunday.
The Queensland Electoral Commissioner, Walter van der Merwe needs to sack the buffoons responsible for this farce and at the same time get rid of their media people who put out the spin and piffle printed below to defend the indefensible.
The ECQ stuffed up their running of the 2012 Local Government election in Queensland and their encore performance in 2015 at the weekend suggests we might be better off having Dad's Army run our elections.
After all, they couldn't do any worse.
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The Gatton Star reports:
MP Ian Rickuss remains tight-lipped while the count continues having mistakenly claimed victory on Sunday based on incorrect two party preferred results on the Electoral Commission Queensland website.
The count was removed after election analyst and Ipswich councillor Paul Tully pointed the error out.
The ECQ told the Gatton Star in a statement that a notional count was conducted on Saturday evening to provide indicative information for the benefit of the media and the parties.
"It is not an official count, it is often useful for giving a sample of how the electorate has voted," the ECQ statement said.
"There is no error in counting in Lockyer. We selected the incorrect top 2 candidates for that notional count.
"We have now selected the top two candidates and are proceeding with another notional count."
The ECQ said they were proceeding with the official count.
"The first step is to count all the votes and determine candidate order, after that we allocate preferences," the ECQ said.
"While there tends to be speculation on a successful candidate based upon a notional count, the Commission does not declare a successful candidate until the mathematical possible of another candidate winning is eliminated."
