At the 2022 Victorian election, every voter filled in two ballot papers on the same day: one for the Lower House and one for the Upper House. The results show that many Victorians backed a major party for government but handed their Upper House vote to someone else entirely.

1. On the same day, most parties got a different result in each house

Figure 1. Statewide first-preference vote share for each party contesting both houses at the 2022 Victorian state election. Each line joins a party’s Lower House result to its Upper House result. Hover for exact values; click a legend item to hide or show a house. Use the zoom tool to inspect the smaller parties. Data: Victorian Electoral Commission.

For both major parties, the Upper House dot sits to the left of the Lower House dot: Labor fell from 37% to 33%.

2. Legalise Cannabis grew its vote 25-fold between ballots

Figure 2. Difference between each party’s Upper House and Lower House first-preference share, 2022. Bars to the right show parties that did better in the Upper House. Hover for exact values. Data: Victorian Electoral Commission.

Legalise Cannabis went from 0.16% to 4.09%, the biggest gain of any party, while independents, the Coalition and Labor lost the most.

3. Minor parties won more than one in four Upper House votes

Figure 3. First-preference vote share by bloc in each house, 2022. The Coalition combines Liberal, The Nationals and joint Liberal/Nationals tickets. Hover for exact values; click a legend item to hide or show a bloc. Data: Victorian Electoral Commission.

Minor parties and independents rose from 17.1% of the Lower House vote to 27.2% in the Upper House.

4. A clear majority in one house, a crossbench in the other

Figure 4. Share of seats won by each bloc in the Lower House (87 seats decided on election day) and the Upper House (40 seats), 2022. The dashed line marks 50%. Hover for seat counts. Data: Victorian Electoral Commission.

Labor won 64% of Lower House seats but only 38% of the Upper House, where 7 minor-party members hold the balance of power.

5. The two ballots swapped places: since 2006, the Lower House is the one voters get wrong

Figure 5. Informal vote rate on the Lower House and Upper House ballot papers at each Victorian state election, 1999–2022. The dashed line marks the 2006 Upper House reform. Hover for exact values; click a legend item to hide or show a house. Data: Victorian Electoral Commission.

The lines cross between 2002 and 2006: by 2022 the Lower House informal rate was 2.31 percentage points higher than the Upper House, among the same voters on the same day.

Conclusion: what this means for 2026

The same Victorians, on the same day, gave two different answers. On the Lower House ballot, Labor’s 37% of first preferences turned into a clear majority of seats. On the Upper House ballot, more than one in four voters (27.2%) chose a minor party or independent, and 7 crossbench members now decide which laws pass.

Part of the difference is the ballot paper itself. Since the 2006 reform, the Upper House lets voters number a single box above the line, and its informal rate has stayed low. The Lower House ballot, where every box must be numbered, now loses 2.3 percentage points more votes to informality.

Three things to watch on 28 November 2026:

The race for government is decided on the first ballot. The power to pass laws is increasingly decided on the second.