Armarium Interreta

Poll analysis, politics analysis, and the occasional bit of history

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How Close Was the 2022 Australian Federal Election?

Comparing the magnitude of Labor's win at the 2022 federal election with the history of Australian federal elections.

The election coverage this year was long, drawn-out, and obsessed with speculating about majorities. But how close actually was the election?

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A Repeat of the 2019 Polling Error Would Still See Labor Ahead

We explore the electoral map if the Coalition over-performs its polls again.

2019 is not the slam-dunk “gotcha” example that everybody thinks it is.

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Model the 2022 Australian Federal Election

Using our forecast, you can pick a two-party-preferred vote and see how the electoral map shifts!

Come play with the interactive widgets! And watch what shifts in voting and polling imply for seat and national outcomes.

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Has Australian Polling Accuracy Changed Over Time?

Look closer, and you'll notice the big errors were always there under the hood. It's just that we never really focused on them.

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What Happens if the Electoral Realignment in 2019 Continues?

An examination of the electoral map if Labor continues to trade voters in historically-Labor electorates for voters in historically-Liberal electorates.

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Do State Polling Errors Predict Federal Polling Errors?

We explore whether Newspoll's recent performance has any implications for its accuracy at the upcoming federal election.

Despite Newspoll’s improving performance, maybe we shouldn’t overdraw conclusions for polling errors of the federal election.

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Realignment versus Reversion

A follow-up where we use Australian state voting patterns to analyse if electorates tend to undergo realignment or reversion.

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Improving Seat Forecasts Made Using The Uniform Swing Model

How data from older elections can help, and why our forecast differs from a uniform swing in its prognostications for Colton and Hartley.

Ever onward, ever upward, working on the being ever-better.

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How our South Australian state election forecast works

We've built a forecast for the 2022 South Australia state election. Here's how it works.

Delve behind the curtain and discover what goes into making an election forecast.

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South Australia State Election 2022 Forecast

Our forecasts for the 2022 South Australian state election.

South Australia goes to the polls this evening! Re-promoting our forecast for posterity, kudos and the true test tonight. Have a watch party and watch the votes go down!

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Why a House/Senate Split Election Is Bad for The Government

What history there is of split House/Senate elections suggests that the government would be making its life much harder for little gain if it opted for one.

To quote Twitter, electing the Senate and the House on different dates would be an insane thing to do (though I’d love to see it happen in my lifetime).

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Do Outlier Polls Tend To Get It Right?

Recently, some pollsters have begun to publish outlier voting-intention polls. Historically, have such anomalies ended up closer to the mark?

Variety is the spice of life, but outlier polls are not necessarily the meat of the matter.

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Who Suckered Jobs From Whom?

Wherein America steals Mexican jobs, manufacturing employment increases post-NAFTA, and no, this is not a joke.

NAFTA was a scapegoat for American economic problems for much of the last decade. But this political pinata never actually did what most people accuse it of.

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Inflation-Immune Imperium

According to myth, Roman inflation ends Roman empires. According to me (and a barrage of evidence), I'd like to see someone try to prove it.

If we want to discuss how inflation ends empires, first we gotta make sure we’re using the right definitions. And oh holy historiography, do I want to pick an argument about definitions.

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The incentive is to publish polls as accurate as possible; and public opinion isn't that easily manipulated.

Polling has created its own ecosystem of checks and balances that penalize and correct error; if polling error was ridiculously predictable, none of us would ever be surprised by elections.

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore the Polls (For Now)

While final polling is quite accurate, polls taken too far out from election day have little predictive value.

Amid the anticipation of the next election, polls are coming out and under sharp scrutiny and discussion. Here’s a hand-crafted guide to preserving your peace of mind, and not caring!

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Can Approval Ratings Be Used to Forecast an Election?

An examination of approval ratings and whether they have predictive value.

While we agree with Dr Bonham that approval ratings are rubbish, they're more the sort of thing you'd toss into recycling than landfill.