Bad luck of the ballot paper draw for some MPs ahead of federal election

Sitting MPs in key seats across the country have ended up with low listings on the ballot while challengers have ended up with top billing – a luck of the draw that could help decide the outcome in some electorates.

Liberal MPs including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Tim Wilson have been drawn low on the ballot, while Labor MP Fiona Phillips faces a fight from last position after nominations for the federal election closed on Thursday.

Liberal MPs Josh Frydenberg and Dave Sharma have drawn low places on the ballot.Credit: Steven Siewert

Ballot draws around Australia were conducted to determine the order of candidates’ names on the printed ballot slips, with first place potentially providing a crucial advantage in tightly contested races due to donkey voting.

In the key marginal seat of Gilmore, Liberal candidate Andrew Constance has won a potential advantage by being named first on the ballot, while Phillips was placed in seventh and last spot.

Frydenberg was seventh out of 11 candidates in Kooyong, but independent candidate Monique Ryan, who is his main challenger, won the first spot.

Independent psephologist Dr Kevin Bonham said the advantage of donkey votes – where people number the ballot in consecutive order from top to bottom – was less than 1 per cent in most seats.

“It’s a small advantage, but it’s only likely to be decisive if it’s a very close seat,” he said.

“In a seat which comes down to a few hundred votes, it might be that someone wins by having the better ballot position.”

Very long ballots also appear to disadvantage candidates right at the bottom “perhaps quite severely”, he said.

“But where Frydenberg is – seven out of 11 – is not particularly bad,” Bonham said.

Liberal MP Tim Wilson got eighth spot on the Goldstein ballot, while main challenger Zoe Daniel won fifth. In Wentworth, Liberal MP Dave Sharma drew seventh position while independent challenger Allergra Spender got fifth spot.

In the marginal Queensland seat of Longman, incumbent LNP MP Terry Young is last on the ballot

In Macquarie, the most marginal seat in the country at the 2019 election, One Nation candidate Tony Pettitt won the top spot, while incumbent Labor MP Susan Templeman got second place. Liberal hopeful Sarah Richards was drawn in eighth place.

But seats that were super marginal at the last election may not be as marginal this time around, Bonham said.

“It’s not really easy to tell which are the seats where it makes a bigger difference, but it’s certainly more interesting in a seat where there’s some sort of contest.”

Bonham said the ballot draw was a fair system, but it would be fairer still if the federal election took the Tasmanian system, which uses the Robson rotation to randomise every printed ballot.

“In the Tasmanian system every ballot paper is randomised so you don’t get the big advantage from going first,” he said.

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