Talk:Electoral system of Australia/Archive 2013

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)

How would they know who that person was ?Eregli bob (talk) 02:01, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

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

IIUC electoral law is entirely a matter handled by the jurisdiction in question and there are often subtle differences in the rules on informals. What you're referring to sound like Langer votes which were federally allowed as formal under the law between 1983(?) & 1998 and I think are still formal in some of the compulsory preference states/territory. Initially they were just errors in filling out the ballot paper but after the campaign to use them to backdoor optionally preference the federal law was changed to remove the provision. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:45, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

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.

You forgot the people who have to work on Saturdays.Eregli bob (talk) 01:53, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

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)

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)

"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." "Highly complex" is not neutral. "Unexpected outcomes" is vague. "Insignificant primary vote tally" is false, since the winning candidate must get more primary votes than at least one other candidate. I suggest: "This system can result to a candidate being elected who is not the first choice of the most voters." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.43.124.142 (talk) 09:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I *think* the example of how to calculate transfer factors may be wrong. The article says that it is calculated as surplus/(total votes for candidate), whereas according to http://www.eca.gov.au/systems/proportional/by_area/com.htm is is (surplus/(total *ballots* received). --Rjmatthews62 (talk) 23:55, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Australia votes (excepting those who dissent)

Stripping all the spin, here's what was to be found on the AEC's first preference site this morning. The totals will, of course change as counting proceeds--but the percentages are pretty well set in concrete.

The most significant swing was one of 16.74%--of the enrolled voters who decided to give the election a miss altogether.

This is a list of national first-preference totals and percentages of enrolled electors:

Enrolled electors 14,705,522, 100%
Did not vote 3,471,271, 23.61%
Voted Informal 662,397, 4.50%
Voted for Politicians 10,571,854, 71.89%

Or, for fans of the 2-party régime,

Voted for the Liberal Party 3,351,326, 22.79%
Voted for Lib/Nationals 1,450,907 9.87%
Voted for the Labor Party 3,578,223, 24.33%
Voted for others 2,191,398, 14.90%
Gave the raspberry to all of the above: 4,133,668, 28.11%

Clearly tells us why forced "preferential" transfers are needed to give a phoney appearance of legitimacy to the Australian voting system! Bjenks (talk) 02:46, 8 September 2013 (UTC)