Australians don't understand English, or at least the Australian Electoral Commission doesn't. In particular it doesn't understand the meaning of the following simple phrase: "Seats Won".

"Seats Won": The common sense meaning

Seats won is seats won! Anyone knows that, even a toddler.

Anything else, such as seats in which a candidate is leading is supposed to be referred to as 'seats in which leading' or a 'trend'. Even the Indian Electoral Commission understands that, and has never so far confused anyone with its results.

In Australia, however, since Saturday night, ALL people that I've come across personally (about 15 of them!) have been totally confused by the words: "Seats Won". The figure reported as "seats won" keeps flipping around. One moment the  ALP is ahead, the other day Liberals are ahead! The people of Australia are totally confused about what is going on.

"Seats Won": The AEC meaning!

After confusing Australia for the last three days the AEC has now issued the following clarification on its website, about what 'seats won' means! If you now understand what 'seats won' means, good on you!

The AEC Virtual Tally Room screen "Seats Won" contains data based on the votes counted to date. It cannot reflect a conclusive result until all counting is finalised and the declaration of the poll has occurred.

In the table on the "Seats Won" screen you will find:

• The candidate/party which won the seat at the last election
• The candidate/party which is currently leading in the count
• The percentage of the Two Candidate Preferred votes that have been counted so far for the Division
• The percentage of the Two Candidate Preferred count received so far by the candidate/party leading in the count at this time.
• When reading information on the "Seats Won" screen, please note:

During the post election day counting period, a seat will appear in the list on this page when more than 5% of the votes cast have been counted and one candidate has received more than 50.5% of the votes in the Two Candidate Preferred vote count.

A seat will also appear in this list when the result of the election in that seat has been declared.

The estimated Two Candidate Preferred count percentage of the leading candidate/party is listed in descending order

Where, following a redistribution a new division has been created or notionally a division has two sitting members, the 'Held' field will be blank

As counting progresses the candidate/party shown as 'winning' the seat may change – a seat has not been won until a candidate has received more than 50% of the formal first preference votes.

The results shown on this screen are not final. {!!!!!!!}

Ha! 

The whole thing would have been avoided by saying: "Leading" or "Trends".

The AEC needs a crash course in English from the India's Election ommission!

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