Talk:Australian electoral system

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Contents

[edit] Section Nominations

In section Nominations, there is a mistake in the Senate candidates deposit. The deposit amount for senate candidates is $1000, and not $100 as is written on the page. I will leave it up to the author who edits the page to correct it.

--Tmsener (talk) 10:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compulsary voting

I heard that in order to avoid voting with the compulsary voting system is to simply spoil one's ballot - that way your name is crossed off, you place your ballot in the box, but you haven't voted. Is this true? Otherwise it would seem to me that checking someone has: 1) had their name crossed off the register, 2) placed their ballot in the box , 3) placed an 'x' in a given box; means that their vote would not be secret.


Answer to above anonymous question: A spoiled vote, as you describe above is what's called an informal vote, and of course does not count towards any candidates votes, but does get the voter off the hook so far as their voting obligations goes. In Australia we have secret voting. Once a voters name and details is found on the roll, they're given two voting papers (ballots). One a green smaller paper with the divisional candidates, and another white long sheet of paper with the senate candidates. The voter then takes these with him/her to a booth where s/he can secretly number the candidates according to their preference. Or, as you suggested, spoil the vote. Every year, about 5% of voters either mistakenly, or deliberately cast informal votes.

--Tmsener (talk) 10:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.24.162 (talk) 12:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

the desciption of the counting process is far too simple to give an accurate description.

Given the amount of polling booths in each electorate, there may be the perception that the following 'The count is conducted by officers of the Australian Electoral Commission, watched by nominated volunteer observers from the political parties, called scrutineers. If one of the candidates has more than 50% of the vote, then she or he is declared elected' can mean that a declaration of a winner is possible by this group Andrewseyfang 03:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)andrewseyfang

An excellent entry, Adam: clear, precise, unbiased and readable. I look forward to seeing it completed. Tannin

"The voter is also free to place the ballot paper in the ballot box unmarked, or with a rude remark written on it. This is called informal voting."

Writing rude remarks do not make votes informal.

I meant to convey that the vote is informal if only a rude remark is written on it. Dr Adam Carr 07:04, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)
A vote is also informal if the presiding officer believes the writing on it could identify the voter, e.g. name, address, phone, email, etc. --ajdlinux 22:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


I think a campaign to write "NO DAMS" on ballots at a Tasmanian (Bass?) bielection in the early 80's help convince the ALP to adopt a policy of preventing the Franklin Dam and that these votes were still counted.

Pwd 06:24, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This tactic was used twice:

1. At the 1981 (I think) referendum held by the Tasmanian government which asked the voters to choose between two dams. Those who didn't want either dam wrote NO DAMS. These votes were informal because the voters refused to express a choice between the two options given. 2. At the 1983 federal election the No Dams people urged their supporters to write NO DAMS on their ballots. These votes were formal provided the numbers were filled in correctly. Dr Adam Carr 07:04, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)


Could you change the wording so it is clear that writing on ballot papers does not make them informal?


This is getting of the topic, but according to the [parlimentary website] many of the referendum ballots with NO DAMS written on them still expressed a preference. These were initially deemed informal, but then counted as formal after legal advice!

I looked at your website, Dr Adam Carr, and I see that the Bass Bielection was in 1975! What was I thinking?

Pwd 23:59, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Preferential voting is the Australian expression for what is called elsewhere the single transferable vote (STV) or instant runoff voting (IRV). These terms are not widely known by Australians, who tend to assume that Australia is the only country in the world where this voting method is known, let alone used.

I love this dig at Australian ignorance :) PMA 10:28, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Very nice page

I hope I wasn't being presumptuous in making a couple of changes (I was surprised they worked!)- Wills byelection was in 1992 (Hawke got the flick in December 1991) and preferential voting first used in 1919 (100% sure about first but only 90% on second).

Presumptuous? Indeed not! Being able to update pages in wikipedia is part of the whole point. Please help us correct and improve wikipedia whenever and whereever you can. Thanks! --Lexor|Talk 02:53, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Great article! Al

[edit] Terminology of Preferential Voting.

A new heading is required to explain such things as "Two-party preferred", "How-to-vote card", "Distribution of preferences", etc. 203.12.97.47 00:55, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No it isn't. All the terms which are relevant to the topic are already explained in the text. Terms such as "protest vote" are not relevant to the topic, they are political not electoral. I have deleted the section and clarified some of the terms in the text. Adam 12:14, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Compulsory to be marked off, or compulsory to vote?

I've heard "it's not compulsory to vote, only to get your name checked off the electoral roll" from many people. However, none of them so far have offered a cite for this claim; "hard to prosecute" doesn't mean "legal".

The Electoral Act[1] is quite clear: "It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election." It repeatedly refers thereafter to "failure to vote" in the regulations concerning punishment for non-voting.

AFAICT, the confusion arises from other portions of the Act which note that failure to get marked off the rolls can be considered as evidence of failure to vote (and in practice, that's the usual form of evidence). However, I'm yet to see anything saying that this is the *only* form of evidence that would be accepted.

If I walk in, get my name checked off, tear up the ballot I'm given in front of the officials and other witnesses, then sign a stat dec. confirming that I did not vote... it seems to me that I could well and truly be fined under section 245. --Calair 02:44, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The counter example to this claim would be the electoral system in the ACT - specifically electronic voting. You are allowed by the computer programme to cast an invalid vote, or even submit a "blank" ballot (ie no vote cast), although it will apparently try to gently persuade you to actually vote formal. This would suggest something greater than mere acceptance of something that is hard to prevent, and at least a pseudo-legality to informal voting in the ACT.

--Jlsa 14:05, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

There is no system in place for people who have their names marked off the roll and then tear up the ballot paper. If such a thing was witnessed by an electoral officer, the persons name would not then be "unmarked' from the roll (if they could even remember the persons name by that point, given thousands of people move through each polling booth), therefore they would not receive a Failure to Vote notice. - drewga —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.139.55.1 (talk) 16:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ballot Access?

When did we start using the term "ballot access" in Australia? - Aaron Hill 02:12, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

  • Never, and I have been reverting the use of this term as often as it appears.
  • On the above discussion, the law is quite clear that it is compulsory to vote, not just to turn up at a polling station. The polling officials cannot prevent people casting blank ballots, and probably cannot stop a person putting the ballot in the bin rather than in the ballot box. But they would probably mark such a person as having not voted. Adam 07:08, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Abolition of compulsory voting

"Occasionally conservative politicians or libertarian intellectuals argue for the abolition of compulsory voting on philosophical grounds, but no government has ever attempted to abolish it."

I thought I remember being pleased the Australian Democrats voted with the opposition to block something like this during the Howard government. I'll do a Google and Hansard search soonish... Mark Hurd 02:44, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am pretty certain that no government has ever introduced a bill to abolish compulsory voting. I am quite certain that the Howard government has not done so. Adam 06:25, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

(18 months later) It was in SA:
See here after Table 3:
"In 1994, Liberal Government legislation was blocked in the Legislative Council by the Labor and Australian Democrat parties."
The House of Assembly accepts it (Adjourned debate continues from 1/3rd down the page to the end of the page -- corresponding to 10:43PM!)
The Legislative Council rejects it (PDF->HTML via Google) (on page 84)
Mark Hurd 06:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"I am pretty certain that no government has ever introduced a bill to abolish compulsory voting" I consider this highly innapropriate. I hate John Howard and beleive that "the People of Ausralia" should do so. Within Australian borders, I take offense to opposion of compulsory voting. For a good example, if I were a school teacher and a student made such comments about the law, I would send them straight to their head of year (there is no Article by this name, there probaly should be). Since the Australian Constitution does not guarantee 'free speech' (especially not in its American form), I feel I have a right to this. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)

Wikipedia isn't here to tell people how things *should* work, though, only how they *do*. --Calair 02:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Neither is it here to tell people who they should hate, whether they are Australians or not. Neither is it "within Australian borders"; its servers are in several places, but primarily in Florida, USA; its editors are all over the world. And I'm glad I never attended a school where I was subject to discipline for my political beliefs, as you apparently think it's proper for schoolteachers to do. *Dan T.* 22:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia isn't here to tell people how things *should* work, though, only how they *do*" I have always thought of that as applying to "articles." But this is not an "article" but a discussion on it, I have often assumend that many policys that apply to "articles" do no apply to 'talks'.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk) | test | contributions|

[edit] Failed FAC nomination

Quoting Ta bu shi da yu: "Basically, this is an excellent piece of writing. It was written from a highly accomplished author, Adam Carr, and is quite NPOV". It's also relevant considering the recent Australian election, which is nominated for featured status below. - Aaron Hill 08:34, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

  • Object for now. The lead section should summarise in broad terms the content of the article and references need to be made explicit. Filiocht 11:03, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)
  • Object 1) Lead section too short, not a summary. 2) No references. 3) The image has no source/usage info. 4) Use tables instead of typewriter parts. 5) While not necessarily bad, there is a lot of explanation of the voting systems themselves (apart from how they are implemented in Australia). Something needs to be explained (for ease of reading), but I feel this much is not really necessary. 6) Voting is compulsory. Is this enforced? How? 7) A map of the electorates (the Australian_electorates is just a stub) would be useful, since it is not very clear what the electorates are. Jeronimo 07:13, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Object. Compares poorly to Antony Green's history on www.abc.net.au or that on www.aec.gov.au. Littered with nationalist NPOV "It was felt that since 60,000 Australians had died in the first world war defending freedom, Australians had a duty to use the freedoms so dearly bought." Nothing on classwar and the history of the electoral system (ALP for goodness' sake). Nothing on the anti-democratic tendencies in the Australian electoral system (I'm thinking the fight for franchise in the 19th C in the state systems, the development of the party system under ALP pressure.). Littered with Americanisms "Ballot Access". Rework, historicise, remove Americanisms, need more on 19th Century and the party system.Fifelfoo 05:20, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] One, Two, Three, Three ...

Forgive me, I'm a lawyer, and I tend to remember things mostly if they generated interesting litigation, but what about Albert Langer and his bizarre campaign (whenever it was; 1993? 1996?) to promote the option of voting validly but without distributing preferences between whichever candidates you consider to be the equal worst. There was a prosecution, and some legislative amendments. I'm sure I can dig out some references if it's thought that this might be included, but I won't bother if it's thought to be not worth including.--SilasM 10:30, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I thought it was 2004. --ajdlinux 22:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Langer's "vote 1, 2, 2, 2" campaign & prosecution for it were 1996 - see here and here, for instance. He may well have been active on some front during the most recent election, but I'm pretty sure that particular loophole was plugged shortly after Langer's prosecution (in which he received a ten-week sentence for advocating what was, at the time, a legal and valid vote). --Calair 23:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Informal voting

The article suggests that failure to fill out all the boxes on a ballot paper renders a vote informal. However, it then goes on to discuss an actual election result (Helen Caldicott's attempt on parliament). In those tables refererence is made to "exhausted" votes. These are votes that have run out of preferences - that is, did not have any more votes beyond the person just eliminated (or only included preferences for other eliminated candidates). It is claimed that the Electoral Act has been changed since it would nice to have a date. I helped scrutinise at the 2000 ACT election and virtually any sort of vote was allowed (even ones with additional "made up" candidates added to the ballot paper and then included in the preferences). Maybe this is just a Canberra thing.

The AEC link provided is slightly vague (while seeming to confirm the statement through its definition of a formal vote, the definition of what is an informal vote does not include a failure to fill all the squares, just a duplication or uncertainty about the voter's intention - although there is another page with a summary of types of "informal" votes including the ones otulined above).

The claim that (Under ss.240 and 245(1) "in scrutinising ballot papers for formality the franchise will be favoured" suggests that a vote is formal as long as the voter's intention is clear. Filling out the form with 1,3,4,5 is valid because the intention of order is clear. Similarly filling out a ballot with 1,2,3,3,4 will be formal as long as the vote is not attempted to be transfered beyond the second preference (as up to this point the voter's intention is clear).

Even the used of X is accepted. Voting X,2,3,4 will usually be accepted by scrutineers as a valid vote for the candidate with the X first and the preferences following.

Maybe there is a difference between "informal" and "disenfranchised" here. There appear to be contradictions in the AEC stuff, general knowledge and practical application here. --Jlsa

[edit] The how to vote image

The how-to-vote card is Liberal. NPOV, anyone? --ajdlinux 22:36, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Whereas one from the Australian Greens would be NPOV. :P I didn't upload the image, but I think it's better to use a real HTV rather than an imaginary one. Andjam 23:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it should be moved to the House of Reps section of the article, where HTVs are first discussed? I'm not particularly fussed by its inclusion in the article (I agree that it's better to use a real HTV, and the Liberal one is as appropriate as any other) but moving it there would put it more firmly in its intended context as an example. If we need an image for the intro, perhaps a blank ballot paper instead?
Come to think of it, a blank ballot and a HTV for the same election would complement one another nicely, if anybody can dig those up? --Calair 23:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I deliberately uploaded a Liberal HTV so that I (an ALP member) would not be accused of POV. You can't win :) Adam 02:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Where's a Marijuana Smokers Party HTV card when you need one! Georgeslegloupier 15:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Informal voting is illegal?

Blimey! Now they tell me, after all these years... My grandmother used to give them all a tick, to be fair to everyone...

On a more serious note, can anyone tell me WHERE it says informal voting is illegal? Because that is what the article is suggesting:

In practice, while illegal, informal voting - going through the motions of voting without actually filling in a valid ballot - is near-impossible to prosecute, given the secret nature of the ballot.

The legislation cited seems to make not voting illegal. But informal voting is still voting, wouldn't it be called something like "informal non-voting"? I think maybe someone has misinterpreted the legislation cited here. Or confused "informal voting" with "advocating informal voting". Georgeslegloupier 15:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The legislation doesn't say it is every elector's "duty to attempt to vote". It's clearly a pedantic point, but I believe we need a lawyer's opinion to suggest an informal vote is legal, as compared to an unenforceable illegality. Mark Hurd 05:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I found this a little while ago that states that voting informal is legal:

"A few years ago all the major parties passed an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act making it illegal to encourage people to vote informal or in any other way not specified by the Act. Maximum penalty: imprisonment for six months. Although it is quite legal to actually vote informal, it is now a crime to advocate doing so." [2] Georgeslegloupier 16:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

In today's SA state election the Legislative Assembly ballot paper says "You are not obligated to mark this paper." or words to that effect. Mark Hurd 03:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

And the reason is that the SA legislation has the same wording as the Federal one mentioned in the article (and above), but point (2) is added to explicitly allow blank ballot papers. See SA ELECTORAL ACT 1985 - SECT 85. Mark Hurd 05:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Anthony Green (election analyst) describes this and other unique SA electoral matters here: [3] Mark Hurd 02:26, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
IIRC, that "voting informal is illegal" was my edit. Looking back at it, I think I mentally amalgamated "voting informal" with "not voting", which I shouldn't have. It's clear that "not voting" is an offence - see refs in the preceding paragraph - but not so clear (to me, at least) whether an informal ballot would count as "not voting". (While we might refer to it as an 'informal vote', that doesn't necessarily mean it's a 'vote' in legal terms; I don't have a Macquarie handy, but dictionary.com defines a vote as a "formal expression of preference", and I'm not convinced an informal vote counts as either 'formal' or an 'expression of preference'.)
But I'm not a lawyer and looking back on it, I don't think I had good grounds for including that claim, so I've removed it. The article could do with something on the illegality of advocating informal votes, but that's a separate issue (and wasn't the basis for my claim that voting informal is illegal). --Calair 08:32, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Norfolk Island

The article says the population of NI is not represented in the Federal Parliament. This is not entirely true. NI as a whole is certainly not represented, but this makes it clear that NI residents can enrol in any state-based Federal electorate, or Solomon (NT) or Canberra (ACT). I'm not sure how this information should be presented, which is why I'm raising it here. JackofOz 12:42, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Authorised by..."

I just edited I approve this message (see section "Other countries"), adding a reference to the Australian electoral system's use of "Authorised by..." at the end of ads. Could someone please check it and make sure I've got my facts right?

Perhaps it also deserves a mention in this article. It also relates to controversies over allegedly deceptive conduct, such as that by Exclusive Brethren supporting the Liberal party (recent SMH article by David Marr) and Liberal party flyers made up to look like Greens promo, except that they actually criticised the Greens, making what the Greens considered false claims. Just a suggestion - I don't know this area very well, and don't have the links... --Singkong2005 (t - c - WPID) 03:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The fake Greens how-to-vote cards? Try this report for a start. It goes much deeper of course, but I don't know how article-worthy the Australian blogosphere is. --bainer (talk) 03:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Very common misunderstanding about "Preference Deals"

Is it worth noting or even clarifying the point that quite a few Australians believe that "preference deals" are given to other parties automatically without the voter's consent? As an Example: In QLD I vote (optional preferential system) 1 for the Fishing Party without voting for anyone else, once the vote has been counted it has been exhausted, but quite a few people think that because the Fishing Party did a "preference deal" with the Cotton Underwear party, my vote than goes to that party (in a close count). This seems to be perpetuated by the Australian media quite a bit, when the real meaning of "preference deals" is that a party will "direct" someone to vote in a certain way via a How-to-Vote card, but there is no automatic mechanism that makes it happen unless the voter willingly follows the How-to-vote card.--81.144.244.194 15:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)Lucas

The situation in the Senate is rather different, because there we have compulsory full preferential voting - the voter must either vote above the line, in which case their preferences are allocated as their party has directed, or vote below the line, in which case they must fill in every square themselves. In practice more than 95% of voters vote above the line, which means that a preference deal between (say) Family First and the ALP will result in the overwhelming majority of preferences being allocated according to the terms of that deal - which is how Steve Fielding got elected, and also how various obscure people got elected to the NSW Legislative Council despite getting hardly any first preference votes. Adam 05:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Federal Electorates

Technically, they are called Divisions.

[edit] Double Dissolution terms for Senators

After a Double Dissolution election has been held, which Senators (other than than the ones coming from the territories) will have 3 year terms instead of 6? User:Jleonau 22:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

None of them. All Senators have a 6-year term, that's provided by the Australian Constitution. Senators do not actually have a 3-year term. When we elect half of the Senate every 3 years in a General Election, we are electing the half of the Senate whose 6 year terms are expiring. With a double dissolution election, it's usually followed by a General Election to force one half of the Senate to be re-elected. The other half is then re-elected in 3 years time, and then it's back to normal, I think. LudBob 09:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I'm very confused by this. How exactly is it determined which half of the Senate is forced to be re-elected? Timrollpickering 03:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
The rotation of senators stems from section 13 of the Constitution, wherein it is provided that after the first meeting of the Senate in 1901, and again after each first meeting of the Senate following a dissolution thereof, the Senate shall divide the senators chosen into two classes, senators of the first class holding their seats for 3 years and senators of the second class holding their seats for 6 years —Odgers J. R., Australian Senate Practice, 5th Edn 1976. The 6-year terms are given to the 3 senators in each state returned by the highest number of votes and the 3-year terms to the 3 lowest on the poll. The terms are all fixed to commence on 1 July and end on 30 June. Where necessary to meet this condition after a dissolution, the commencement date is artificially backdated. Bjenks (talk) 16:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it "artificial"; it's a constitutional provision. Para 3 of s.13 says: "For the purposes of this section, the term of service of a senator shall be taken to begin on the first day of July following the day of his election, except in the case of the first election and of the election next after any dissolution of the Senate, when it shall be taken to begin on the first day of July preceding the day of his election". So, the backdating occurs after every double dissolution, because those are the only occasions when the Senate is dissolved. It's otherwise continuous, unlike the House of Reps. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Joint Sittings

There seems to be a gap in Wikipedia's coverage of joint sittings of the House and Senate. One would come to the conclusion that the only time a joint sitting could ever be held is under s.57, following a double dissolution. However, casual vacancies in the representation of the ACT in the Senate (and presumably of the NT as well), are filled not by nomination by the relevant "state" parliament (the ACT or NT Legislative Assembly), but by a joint sitting of the Federal Parliament. This is precisely how Margaret Reid was chosen to replace John Knight. As far as I can see there is absolutely nothing about this in any article at present. Indeed, there seems to be nothing about how casual vacancies in either house of parliament are filled. JackofOz 13:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The Margaret Reid article states This was the first of only two occasions on which a Senate casual vacancy was filled in this manner, as the law was later changed to provide for the relevant territory (ACT or NT) legislative assembly to appoint a replacement senator. Bjenks (talk) 16:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Yep, thanks. Those words were actually mine. My initial post above was a little flawed, and since then I've done a lot of work on the Casual vacancy article. Feel free to improve it. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Looks pretty good to me. When next you edit, you might consider using uniform lower case for 'parliament', 'state' and 'territory', etc, where not used as part of a proper noun. Cheers Bjenks (talk) 03:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Defending freedom?

I think the reasons for Australia adopting Compulsory Voting could be looked into a little more than "a duty to defend freedoms so dearly bought". Writing that 60,000 Australians died "defending freedom" seems a bit of a generalisation.

Well the fact is that was the rationale used at the time. Rocksong 01:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV?

This seems slightly POV to me: "In reality the practice benefits all political parties, as they are saved from the need to persuade people to vote." (from the section on compulsary voting. What do other people think? Soaringgoldeneagle 15:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, either POV or OR. It can just as easily be argued that some political parties would be better off without compulsory voting, since their opponents would lose more votes than they would. In fact, the whole paragraph looks like OR to me; the arguments it gives really need to be attributed to somebody more specific than "many observers". --Calair 01:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Can I also draw attention to the following passage:
"The fact that compulsory voting has lasted through many changes of government indicates to many observers[citation needed] that the party that benefits most from it is the party in power, who are the ones that would have to change it. The reason for this belief is that despite its best efforts no government can avoid occasionally annoying its own supporters. These voters would never vote for the opposition, but if voting were voluntary and they were sufficiently annoyed they could just stay at home."
I don't know the observers being referred to, but the first sentence contains a logical fallacy, since governments frequently do change hands.
I'm not familiar with the evidence, but there is no reason to believe that the abolition of compulsory voting would have a proportional effect on all parties.
I think the second and third sentences need to be reworded to convey the notion that (1) compulsory voting gives greater influence to voters with weaker preferences than voluntary voting and that (2) the stability of turnout from election to election that compulsory voting engenders actually bolsters the phenomenon of 'safe' and 'marginal' electorates.
Simon Thackrah 14:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not so sure that "governments frequently do change hands", at least at Commonwealth level. Since 1949 there have been 9 successive Coalition victories, then 2 successive Labor victories, 3 Coalition, 5 Labor and 4 Coalition, or else just 6 changes of power since the Second World War, and that doesn't seem to be quite as frequent as some, particularly as Australia has more frequent elections than many other countries. Compare that to Ireland which has had 12 changes of ruling party in the same period, New Zeland with 8 and the UK & Canada both with 7. Okay the numbers are close, but Australia has had 25 federal elections in the period, so the incumbant re-election rate is over 75%. Ireland has had 18 - a re-election rate of just 33%. New Zealand 20 - 60%. The UK 17 - 58%. Canada 20 - 65%.
I think the root of the confusion for that sentence is that in places where voting is not compulsory the only thing uniting all the non-voters is that they don't vote. Some don't vote because they don't care about politics at all. Others don't because they think it won't make a difference. Others won't because they've been alienated from their normal party but won't vote for the oppoition for one reason or another (sometimes social, economic or religious factors). Plus some might vote for a particular protest party if a candidate stands locally, but otherwise not. Compulsory voting (and in the last case compulsory preferencing) removes this alternative that parties are competing with.
I don't know how you reach the idea "that compulsory voting engenders actually bolsters the phenomenon of 'safe' and 'marginal' electorates" - safe and marginal seats exist in many non compulsory systems and indeed changing levels of turnout can sometimes decide the outcome in razor-edge marginals. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising

Shouldn't there be mention of the advertising restrictions on our system? I believe these are largely unique to our electoral process. For example, the news blackouts, candidates advertising posters restricted to certain time periods, candidates fined if they don't remove election posters and campaign fund restrictions etc. Wayne 19:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Senate: surplus votes

"Their surplus votes were then distributed. The surplus is the candidate's vote minus the quota. Hutchins's surplus was thus 1,446,231 minus 536,533, or 909,698. These votes were distributed to whichever candidates received the no 2 votes on Hutchins's ballots."

But which surplus votes? Is there a statistical application of the number twos in all of the votes, both those that go towards making the quota and those left over? It needs to be clarified. Tony 00:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

That's answered further on in the same section. --Calair 01:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Section Preferential Voting

I thought that the second part of this section was rather unclear. Namely the two paragraphs quoted below.

As a starting point, I am proposing the following. (My additions are in bold, and deletion are in strikeout)

Preferential voting has gradually extended to both upper and lower houses, in the federal, state and territory legislatures, and is also used in municipal elections, and most other kinds of elections as well, such as internal political party elections, trade union elections, church elections, elections to company boards and elections in voluntary bodies such as football clubs. It is common for candidates to recommend a particular distribution of preferences to voters, the so called how to vote cards. Negotiations for these disposition distribution of preference recommendations to voters are taken very seriously by candidates owing to the fact that transferred preferences carry the same weight as primary votes. A voter wishing to accept a particular candidates recommended distribution of preferences would simply copy the numbering from that candidate's how to vote card onto their ballot. However, due to the large number of candidates standing for election in each division, the The federal Senate electoral system and those for some state legislatures now provide for simultaneous registration of party-listed candidates and party-determined orders of voting preference distribution of preferences, known as 'group voting tickets'.

Under this system, the ballot paper is divided into two section, the first containing the names of each candidate grouped according to their party, and the second containing some reference to each party's recommended distribution of preferences. Voters voters can opt to either 'vote above the line' simply by placing the number '1' in a single box next to the recommended distribution of preferences they wish to accept or to 'vote below the line' by numbering a large number of the many individual candidate's boxes in the order of their own preference. In the latter option, there is a risk that the vote will be declared invalid ('informal') if any number in the sequence is inadvertently duplicated or omitted. However, an estimated 95% of all votes are cast 'above the line', meaning that the precise valuation of those votes is passed to the control of the party receiving the single primary vote. The electoral authority automatically allocates preferences, or votes, in the predetermined order outlined in as if every candidate had been numbered according to the group voting ticket. Each party or group can register up to three group voting tickets. This highly complex system has potential for unexpected outcomes, including the possible election of a candidate who may have initially received an insignificant primary vote tally.


Unless I have misunderstood entirely what these paragraphs are trying to say.

--RegularPaul (talk) 09:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it needs a bigger reworking and possibly some relaying out because on first reading it's not 100% clear that it's referring to only the Senate ballot paper and can give the impression that's it's possible to cast an above the line vote for the House (indeed isn't this confusion thought to be one of the reasons for the Senate ballot usually have significantly fewer informals than the House in the same constituency?). "the same weight as primary votes" is also confusing because whilst this is true in a single member system, in multi-member STV the surplus is of a smaller value than a full vote. As for complexity, I'm not sure this is the fault of the system - other countries and organisations who use STV generally don't have many problems once people are used to preferencing their ballot - but rather the scale (6 or 12 members elected in a constituency of millions with getting on for 80 candidates is at least at the upper ends of tolerance), the fact that voting below the line requires far more of an effort than above the line and the limited attention given to the order of tickets. Above the line voting itself is rare in STV but is really nothing more than opting to follow a HTV card, albeit skipping the actual copying stage. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)