The way voters mark their first preference is only the beginning of a Victorian Lower House contest. In the 2022 State election, 77 of 87 Legislative Assembly contests required a distribution of preferences. This was 88.51% of contests, compared with 48 of 88 contests (54.55%) in 2018. The result shows why a story about Victorian elections should not stop at first-preference vote shares. This report follows the count from the first preference to the final result. It first compares votes with seats, then shows how common preference distributions became, then compares first-preference and final margins in selected districts. Finally, it looks inside Melbourne District to show that even one electorate contains very different local voting patterns.
The purpose is not to predict the 2026 election. Instead, the analysis identifies a feature of the Victorian electoral system that is useful to watch in 2026: the movement of votes through preference distributions and the different voting patterns within districts.
All charts use values included directly in this file. There is no data download, no column matching and no need to edit the code. The results and statistics were checked against the Victorian Electoral Commission’s 2022 state election results and state election statistics.
Labor received 37.03% of first-preference votes and won 56 of the 87 Lower House seats. The comparison shows that the number of seats is not a simple copy of the statewide first-preference vote. Smaller parties can also receive a meaningful share of first preferences without winning a comparable number of seats. This creates the first point in the story: the way votes are converted into district winners matters. Interaction planned for the published version: hover over each bar to show the exact percentage, votes and seat count.
Lower House participation fell from 93.02% in 2014 to 90.16% in 2018 and 87.13% in 2022. At the same time, the informal vote rate was 5.53% in 2022. This matters because an election story is not only about which party wins. It is also about how many enrolled voters participate and how many votes cannot be counted as formal votes.
Interaction planned for the published version: hover over each year to display participation and informal voting percentages.
In 2022, 77 of 87 Legislative Assembly contests required a preference distribution, equal to 88.51%. In 2018, 48 of 88 contests required one, equal to 54.55%. The large increase gives the story its central finding: preference counting was relevant to the outcome in most Victorian Lower House districts in 2022. Interaction planned for the published version: hover over each bar to show the number of districts and percentage.
The selected districts demonstrate that the final count can look very different from the first-preference position. In Melbourne, the Greens led Labor by 6.64 percentage points on first preferences, but the final margin after preferences was 20.38 points. In Mornington, the Liberal candidate led the first preference count by 20.16 points over the independent candidate, but the final result was much closer, with a margin of only 1.40 points. Pakenham also became extremely close after preferences, with the final margin only 0.78 points.
These examples show why a single statewide vote-share number cannot explain every district. Preferences can either increase a lead or substantially reduce it.
Interaction planned for the published version: hover over each district to show first-preference margin, final margin, winner and final result.
Melbourne District provides a useful final layer of detail. The VEC reports voting-centre results for places including Carlton, Docklands, East Melbourne, Kensington, North Melbourne and Parkville. The proportions of votes received by the Greens, Labor and Liberal candidates differ between centres. For example, Kensington recorded a particularly high Greens first-preference share, while other centres showed a different balance between the three parties.
This local variation matters because district-level totals can hide differences between neighbourhoods and voting centres. The final message is therefore broader than ‘preferences matter’: the location of votes inside a district matters as well.
Interaction planned for the published version: hover over each voting centre to show candidate votes and percentages; legend controls allow parties to be hidden or shown.
The 2022 Victorian State election shows that the first preference is only one stage of the Lower House story. Most districts required preference distributions, and the final margin could be very different from the first-preference margin. The comparison also shows why statewide vote shares should not be used alone to understand individual districts. Voting patterns vary between places inside the same electorate.
Looking toward the 2026 State election, the useful question is therefore not simply which party receives the largest first-preference vote. It is also which districts require preference distributions, how close those contests become, and how voting patterns differ within each district. The analysis does not predict the 2026 result; it identifies the electoral mechanisms that deserve attention when the new results arrive.