You make a good point homelycooking.
In the past there were instances of people saying, "So and so is safe" vote for me, and this actually cost Feds their second seat back in April 2013. This time, I assumed the quota would be 21 or 22 but it hit 23 and that was with much lower Fed Turnout then I was hoping for.
I don't think people don't understand this though homely. In the past the preference counts were usually rather close. This time there was a group of people who didn't much care for labor, loved Polnut and there was no one else they were extremely passionate about so blew Polnut through the ceiling (whereas I merely danced on the ceiling. Couldn't resist 
). They know that some flexibility is necessary to get your prefered guys in, what they often aren't aware of is the latest count and that was always a problem on the right. I remember in December 2013 at the end not knowing who to vote for at that point because the counts hadn't been updated. And so aside from bgwah who knew exactly how someone needed to vote as each vote was cast and therefore was able to message people accordingly to get them out and win that second seat by a fraction of a percent, most people don't have the latest numbers in their head.
Yeah, homely, I was pretty good at working the STV system. Nobody else has bothered, which is a shame, since it can be very competitive.
https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/March_2011_Special_Senate_Electionhttps://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/April_2011_Senate_ElectionThere are other elections where the final round doesn't look as close because later voters strategically knocked out candidates stronger in later rounds.
