Independent senator Nick Xenophon has accused the major parties in South Australia of colluding to deny his candidates victories in local seats.

Polls suggest the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) is in with a chance in electorates including Mayo, Sturt and Grey and is poised to take three Senate seats.

But the Lower House battles could come down to preferences, and Senator Xenophon fears Labor and the Liberals have done a deal to stop his candidates.

"I just want the major parties to come clean on what deal they've done in South Australia and around the country because right now they're behaving like a cosy duopoly," he said.

"In fact they're behaving a bit like a cartel.

"There seems to be a very cosy deal that's been done in order to squeeze out competition."

Both the Liberal and Labor parties have chosen to issue split tickets, leaving it up to voters to decide who to preference.

Labor's decision to run a split ticket will make it harder for the Xenophon Team to claim Liberal Lower House seats.

Labor votes will see through deals

Senator Xenophon pleaded with Labor voters to ignore "backroom deals" that could direct preferences to the Liberals.

"If the Labor Party does a deal with a view to saving their arch enemies [Liberals] Christopher Pyne and Jamie Briggs in South Australia then I think a lot of Labor Party voters will see through that," he said.

NXT is running open tickets, meaning the party does not suggest where voters direct their preferences beyond their first preference.

The Liberal Party revealed its trepidation about NXT last week when former prime minister John Howard visited Mayo and likened Senator Xenophon to former One Nation MP Pauline Hanson for his stance on free trade.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited the electorate the previous week.

Meanwhile, pre-poll voting begins in South Australia today, with more than 30 per cent of people expected to take up the opportunity ahead of the election on July 2.

Political analyst Clem Macintyre said "election fatigue" was likely to encourage a high turn-out of people looking to cast their votes early and predictions were up from a 15 per cent turn-out at previous elections.

"Often it is because they have commitments on Saturday but I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that others are simply doing it because they are just wanting to cast a vote and take their mind off the election," he said.

I assume a split ticket is the lib HTV card that Bam posted in the OP.

Bam, can you please explain to me the difference between an open ticket and a split ticket? I'm not familiar with split tickets.

John Smith wrote on Jun 14^th, 2016 at 12:21pm:

Gandalf has already explained it, but the difference is as follows:

* A split ticket (see the OP) has multiple lists of preferences and the voter can choose one.
* An open ticket has no indication of preferences at all but presumably provides instructions for casting a valid vote (number every box in sequence).

The libs HTV card is immaterial here anyway - since they'll be in the 2pp playoff, and therefore their preferences will never get used.

Its only relevant because of how it fits in with a wider state-wide, or even nation-wide deal with labor (if you do this, I'll do that). The only important preferences in play here are whoever comes third on primaries out of labor and NXT