PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA
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TASMANIAN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY POLLS 1913-2006: INCIDENCE OF EXHAUSTED VOTES
NOTE 1: Data below was obtained from Reports to Tasmania's Parliament by the Chief Electoral Officer viewable using the hyperlinks for the relevant Poll Years below.  The Officer has issued the following clarification, "The figures in the above table represent the number of votes that were discarded during the actual count because there was no further choice marked on them that could be effective. These votes do not, in all cases, indicate unrepresented electors, because many of them had contributed to the election of successful candidates before they became exhausted."
NOTE 2: The overall percentages for 1925,1928 and 1931 were calculated from figures in the above Reports, but differ unaccountably from the overall percentages shown separately there, which were 4.0%, 2.9% and 2.3% respectively. The median percentage of exhausted votes over all 29 elections from 1913-2006 is 3.3% as shown below.
NOTE 3: A Tasmanian member of the Federal Opposition, Dame Enid Lyons, Liberal MHR for Darwin (renamed Braddon in 1954), pointed out, in the 1948 debate on PR for the Senate, to the Attorney-General, Dr H.V.Evatt, that Tasmania had never had a requirement, of the type that his Commonwealth Electoral Bill 1948 unfortunately succeeded in providing for Senate PR, that voters must mark more preferences than the number of vacancies to be filled.
Poll Year	Seats per Div.	No. of Prefs. to be marked	Bass			Braddon (Darwin till 1954)			Denison			Franklin			Lyons (Wilmot till 1986)			TASMANIA
			Total Valid Votes	Exhausted Votes		Total Valid Votes	Exhausted Votes		Total Valid Votes	Exhausted Votes		Total Valid Votes	Exhausted Votes		Total Valid Votes	Exhausted Votes		Total Valid Votes	Exhausted Votes
				No.	Percent		No.	Percent		No.	Percent		No.	Percent		No.	Percent		No.	Percent
2006	5	5	60699	984	1.6%	63309	526	0.8%	61538	2135	3.5%	63957	1065	1.7%	60119	540	0.9%	309622	5250	1.7%
2002	5	5	58568	1093	1.9%	60838	1153	1.9%	60235	4641	7.7%	60525	1937	3.2%	56304	2392	4.3%	296470	11216	3.8%
1998	5	5	58614	3423	5.8%	56126	2626	4.7%	59390	2676	4.5%	58864	2459	4.2%	61684	1902	3.1%	294678	13086	4.4%
1996	7	7	58782	767	1.3%	56792	1624	2.9%	59618	914	1.5%	58554	2479	4.2%	60925	1837	3.0%	294671	7621	2.6%
1992	7	7	55507	2016	3.6%	57025	2925	5.1%	54707	4355	8.0%	59090	1809	3.1%	58893	1549	2.6%	285222	12654	4.4%
1989	7	7	53915	624	1.2%	54529	3213	5.9%	54257	347	0.6%	55581	2060	3.7%	54855	1044	1.9%	273137	7288	2.7%
1986	7	7	51101	763	1.5%	51673	155	0.3%	51711	400	0.8%	50479	515	1.0%	51197	562	1.1%	256161	2395	0.9%
1982	7	7	50186	1209	2.4%	48590	2263	4.7%	49601	1371	2.8%	51410	1846	3.6%	50309	1529	3.0%	250096	8218	3.3%
1979	7	7	48367	619	1.3%	46039	2127	4.6%	48376	1494	3.1%	48766	658	1.3%	47736	2271	4.8%	239284	7169	3.0%
1976	7	7	43447	251	0.6%	49970	1470	2.9%	46831	1142	2.4%	47300	1369	2.9%	47582	1742	3.7%	235130	5974	2.5%
1972	7	3	37648	1081	2.9%	41778	617	1.5%	40311	1019	2.5%	38714	1466	3.8%	39819	2550	6.4%	198270	6733	3.4%
1969	7	3	36642	941	2.6%	39361	1191	3.0%	39362	1147	2.9%	35619	919	2.6%	38339	799	2.1%	189323	4997	2.6%
1964	7	3																176591	7832	4.4%
1959	7	3																160743	6094	3.8%
1956	6	3																159325	4975	3.1%
1955	6	3																156479	4019	2.6%
1950	6	3																145944	2654	1.8%
1948	6	3	26731	163	0.6%	29272	1830	6.3%	27716	1329	4.8%	33142	2523	7.6%	25861	1006	3.9%	142722	6851	4.8%
1946	6	3	24167	817	3.4%	27333	1490	5.5%	25782	1175	4.6%	28887	2058	7.1%	23021	1875	8.1%	129190	7415	5.7%
1941	6	3	22632	1097	4.8%	25310	420	1.7%	24754	575	2.3%	25640	915	3.6%	22354	186	0.8%	120690	3193	2.6%
1937	6	3	23920	974	4.1%	24684	194	0.8%	24278	1025	4.2%	25789	323	1.3%	22792	311	1.4%	121463	2827	2.3%
1934	6	3		1364			687			1344			859			1096		116767	5350	4.6%
1931*	6	3		114			428			412			463			1043		108894	2460	2.3%
1928*	6	3		278			331			321			466			1152		88706	2548	2.9%
1925*	6	3	14930	485	3.2%	15824	914	5.8%	16661	224	1.3%	14668	918	6.3%	13484	518	3.8%	75567	3059	4.0%
1922*	6	3		1133			191			400			592			291		67918	2499	3.7%
1919*	6	3		645			454			392			389			366		68307	2246	3.3%
1916*	6	3		500			461			763			725			451		74636	2900	3.9%
1913*	6	3		899			655			1212			42			390		68777	3198	4.7%
1912*	6	3		875			531			65			1160			306		73886	2937	4.0%
1909*	6	3	9070	251	2.8%	9405	87	0.9%	11337	708	6.2%	10285	696	6.8%	8863	159	1.8%	48960	1901	3.9%
MEDIAN Tasmania-wide percentage of exhausted votes over the 29 Tasmanian Assembly elections from 1913 to 2006:																				3.3%
MEAN Tasmania-wide percentage of exhausted votes over the 29 Tasmanian Assembly elections from 1913 to 2006:																				3.4%
MAXIMUM Tasmania-wide percentage of exhausted votes (in 1946) over the 29 Tasmanian Assembly elections from 1913 to 2006:																				5.7%
MINIMUM Tasmania-wide percentage of exhausted votes (in 1986) over the 29 Tasmanian Assembly elections from 1913 to 2006:																				0.9%
* Asterisk indicates that  the numbers of exhausted votes were obtained from Table 14 of the 1931 Report.