Who needs a unifying theme anyway?

Analysis by brisbanetimes.com.au shows the gap between political rivals for nine closely fought federal electorates is smaller than the number of invalid ballot papers. Seven of these battleground seats are set to go to the Liberal National Party while two of them will go to Labor - but the results could have been very different if informal voters had handed in valid ballots. The Australian Electoral Commission says a total of 117,841 informal votes have so far been found among ballot papers in Queensland, representing 6.63 per cent of all votes counted. The prevalence of informal ballot papers in the 2010 election rose sharply from 3.56 per cent at the last election, possibly due to disillusionment with the major parties.