Julian Assange confident of winning Senate seat, participating in debate

[struggle4progress]

AAP August 29, 2013 9:15AM

... "Taking into account the last poll of the ALP, Coalition and the Greens it's likely I will be elected in Victoria to the Senate if we get more than four per cent of the vote."

If the Greens vote is as high as many expect, Mr Assange, 42, argues its excess quota could flow to WikiLeaks and see him elected.

Mr Assange's former running mate Leslie Cannold and a number of his party's national council members quit last week, citing a lack of transparency and accountability ...

"I'm pleased that resignation has occurred because it removed a source of conflict which was holding the party back," Mr Assange said ...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-2013/julian-assange-confident-of-winning-senate-seat-participating-in-debate/story-fn9qr68y-1226706293203

[Tx4obama]

1. I saw an article somewhere (DU?) the other day that said that he has pissed off a bunch...

... a bunch of folks in his party and that his chances of winning had gone WAY DOWN.

[struggle4progress]

2. As I understand it, predicting the exact results of some of these elections

can be tricky, given Australia's complicated preference voting system

There are multiple seats to be filled in districts, and once a candidate gets enough votes to get a set, any excess votes for the candidate will be reallocated proportionally, according to voters indicated preferences for other candidates or parties

Low-count candidates also drop off the list and votes for them are similarly reallocated

So determining the election results can involve a long tedious process of dropping candidates, re-allocating votes, and re-computing totals

That's why Assange thinks he might win with only 4% of the vote: he's counting on preferences thrown his way, from votes in excess of quota, from the Greens and presumably also from all the itsy-bitsy extremist parties he apparently negotiated preference swaps with

And it's also why the Greens are pizzed at him: they're worried his preference choices could cost them in favor of some extremist

I think that's partly what all the recent resignations from Wikileaks Party were about

The real question might be what the effect of that row is on potential Wikileaks voters: some may care that Wikileaks preferenced (say) a white supremacist party and some may not

[SidDithers]

3. There was a really good, in-depth article from Daniel Matthews...

who was a co-founder of Wikileaks. He was one of the ones that also resigned last week. He gives a pretty good account of the inner workings of the Wikileaks Party here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023512271

Edit: oops, that was the DU thread. Here's Matthews' article:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/wikileaks-julian-assange

Sid

[struggle4progress]

4. Thanks, Sid!

[JI7]

5. did that music video he made help him gain support ?

[joshcryer]

6. "holding the party back"

Yeah, the damn leftists, wanting to keep the party, you know, moral, ethical.

Good luck having a right wing party Assange.