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Australian election politics sounds like a genuine labyrinth. And I thought the primary process in the US was difficult to wrap my head around. Compound this wi

Australian election politics sounds like a genuine labyrinth. And I thought the primary process in the US was difficult to wrap my head around. Compound this with what, according to bentoner's link [0], sounds like substantial internal conflict within the party, and I don't have high hopes for the success of the Wikileaks party in Australia this go 'round. Though honestly, it sounds like they're just discovering that a democratic, Kumbaya approach is anathema to actually getting anything done. It all works great when everyone agrees. When divisive decisions have to be made and stuck by? Not so much. Dr. Mathews appears to agree: >He really ought not to have set up a party with internal democracy. [0] http://danielmathews.info/blog/2013/08/statement-of-resignation-from-wikileaks-party-national-council/ http://danielmathews.info/blog/2013/08/statement-of-resignat... EDIT: Excerpt from Wikileaks party response https://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/the-wikileaks-party-announces-independent-review/ https://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/the-wikileaks-party-announ... >If we are unsuccessful in having the AEC adjust the submitted preference nominations to meet the National Council’s directives, we will release a “how to vote below the line” card so all supporters and voters can follow our true preference nominations, or select their own, so any remaining errors on our GVTs will not be passed on to our voters. If I'm understanding this right, the Australians have the privilege of instant run-off preferential voting, and still prefer to just vote party line? Could an Aussie please explain this phenomenon to me? Coming from the states, I'd be frothing at the mouth to have anything other than our absurd closed (depending on state) primary single-vote elections.

anthonyb 13y ago
It's not really a labyrinth, and in this case it sounds like someone's subverted the democratic process, ie. they voted one way, but whoever sent the preferences to the Electoral Commission switched them over. As far as the Australian preference system goes, you have a choice when voting in the lower house: You can pick one box above the line, in which case your preferences will get distributed by the party that you voted for, or you can vote "below the line", in which case you get to vote however you like. It seems odd to me too - I put it down to Australian laziness, ie. why number 60-odd boxes when you could back to the BBQ sucking back a few cold ones? :)
- caf 13y ago
  It's the upper house which has above-the-line voting. In the lower house you must number every square.
caf 13y ago
Bear with me, this could take a while... OK, so there's two elections going on simulateously - one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate. Just as in the US, each electoral district (there are 150) elects a single member to the HoR, whereas each state elects multiple members to the Senate. In the case of the Senate though, each state is treated as one giant electoral district with proportional representation. Both the HoR and Senate elections use single-transferable-vote ("instant runoff"), but this obviously plays out very differently in single-member electoral districts versus multi-member proportional districts. HoR ballots tend to have a reasonably small number of candidates - between 3 and about 15, but usually somewhere nearer to 6. On these ballots, a full preferential ballot is the only option - you must number all candidates in order for your vote to count. Senate ballots, however, are ballooning somewhat out-of-control. At the upcoming election, the Senate ballot paper in NSW will have 110 candidates. Requiring voters to number all of these squares for their vote to count was causing the informal ballot count to increase substantially, so in the 1980s "above the line" voting was introduced. Under above-the-line voting, you can simply indicate a vote for your preferred party ticket, and your full preferences will be allocated according to the ticket that the party submitted to the electoral commission prior to voting. These preference tickets are publically available, and the current controversy surrounds the party tickets lodged by Wikileaks in some states. "Below the line" voting is still available as an option (and obviously one I personally will be taking up). There is growing recognition of the perverse results that "above the line" voting can cause, and of course 1-metre-wide ballot papers with over 100 candidates listed are absurd. There is some talk of allowing "optional preferential voting" above the line, so that you can just number the party tickets in your preferred order, rather than having to either number every single candidate individually, or accept your preferred party's direction of preferences in its entireity.
- aspensmonster 13y ago
  Thank you. Why is it that you must number 100+ boxes? I can certainly see why many would be put off having to do so. It would make more sense to me if you simply numbered the candidates you actually had a preference for, and anyone else on the meter-long ballot didn't get a vote at all. I imagine that would cut down substantially on fringe candidates cluttering up the ballot. It seems that the official parties actually do get this privilege --I've only heard of the major parties mentioning their relative preferences to each other, with no mention of 100+ rankings (edit: or is there indeed a full ranking the party submits, but only the top relative positions are typically reported in the news?). However, if you wish to vote purely according to your own preferences, you're saddled with a ballot that folks will undoubtedly scour for their handful of preferences to truly mark, and then blindly count up to 100+ from top to bottom so that their ballot "counts." EDIT: Many thanks to coffeecheque, Volpe, BlackAura, and any others that help to explain all of the news I've been reading recently :)
BlackAura 13y ago
> If I'm understanding this right, the Australians have the privilege of instant run-off preferential voting, and still prefer to just vote party line? Could an Aussie please explain this phenomenon to me? We have two separate elections - one for the house of representatives, and one for the senate. In both cases, we do preferential voting. For the house of representatives, you have maybe five or six parties running in your electorate, each with one candidate. Filling out preferences for this is feisable, and plenty of people do. It takes about ten seconds. For the senate... not so much. This year, the senate election in New South Wales has 110 candidates. You can either provide a single vote for one party (your preferences will be distributed according to whatever deals that part has made), or you can individually rank all 110 senate candidates. The ballot paper is a meter wide. Oh, and the desks you use are typically wide enough to fit an A4 sheet of paper. Nobody bothers. It's just way too much hassle.
- coffeecheque 13y ago
  There are interesting projects out there to help you organise your Senate papers before you go to the booth. Check out http://belowtheline.org.au http://belowtheline.org.au or http://senate.io http://senate.io

anthonyb 13y ago

It's not really a labyrinth, and in this case it sounds like someone's subverted the democratic process, ie. they voted one way, but whoever sent the preferences to the Electoral Commission switched them over. As far as the Australian preference system goes, you have a choice when voting in the lower house: You can pick one box above the line, in which case your preferences will get distributed by the party that you voted for, or you can vote "below the line", in which case you get to vote however you like. It seems odd to me too - I put it down to Australian laziness, ie. why number 60-odd boxes when you could back to the BBQ sucking back a few cold ones? :)

caf 13y ago
It's the upper house which has above-the-line voting. In the lower house you must number every square.

caf 13y ago

Bear with me, this could take a while... OK, so there's two elections going on simulateously - one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate. Just as in the US, each electoral district (there are 150) elects a single member to the HoR, whereas each state elects multiple members to the Senate. In the case of the Senate though, each state is treated as one giant electoral district with proportional representation. Both the HoR and Senate elections use single-transferable-vote ("instant runoff"), but this obviously plays out very differently in single-member electoral districts versus multi-member proportional districts. HoR ballots tend to have a reasonably small number of candidates - between 3 and about 15, but usually somewhere nearer to 6. On these ballots, a full preferential ballot is the only option - you must number all candidates in order for your vote to count. Senate ballots, however, are ballooning somewhat out-of-control. At the upcoming election, the Senate ballot paper in NSW will have 110 candidates. Requiring voters to number all of these squares for their vote to count was causing the informal ballot count to increase substantially, so in the 1980s "above the line" voting was introduced. Under above-the-line voting, you can simply indicate a vote for your preferred party ticket, and your full preferences will be allocated according to the ticket that the party submitted to the electoral commission prior to voting. These preference tickets are publically available, and the current controversy surrounds the party tickets lodged by Wikileaks in some states. "Below the line" voting is still available as an option (and obviously one I personally will be taking up). There is growing recognition of the perverse results that "above the line" voting can cause, and of course 1-metre-wide ballot papers with over 100 candidates listed are absurd. There is some talk of allowing "optional preferential voting" above the line, so that you can just number the party tickets in your preferred order, rather than having to either number every single candidate individually, or accept your preferred party's direction of preferences in its entireity.

aspensmonster 13y ago
Thank you. Why is it that you must number 100+ boxes? I can certainly see why many would be put off having to do so. It would make more sense to me if you simply numbered the candidates you actually had a preference for, and anyone else on the meter-long ballot didn't get a vote at all. I imagine that would cut down substantially on fringe candidates cluttering up the ballot. It seems that the official parties actually do get this privilege --I've only heard of the major parties mentioning their relative preferences to each other, with no mention of 100+ rankings (edit: or is there indeed a full ranking the party submits, but only the top relative positions are typically reported in the news?). However, if you wish to vote purely according to your own preferences, you're saddled with a ballot that folks will undoubtedly scour for their handful of preferences to truly mark, and then blindly count up to 100+ from top to bottom so that their ballot "counts." EDIT: Many thanks to coffeecheque, Volpe, BlackAura, and any others that help to explain all of the news I've been reading recently :)

BlackAura 13y ago

> If I'm understanding this right, the Australians have the privilege of instant run-off preferential voting, and still prefer to just vote party line? Could an Aussie please explain this phenomenon to me? We have two separate elections - one for the house of representatives, and one for the senate. In both cases, we do preferential voting. For the house of representatives, you have maybe five or six parties running in your electorate, each with one candidate. Filling out preferences for this is feisable, and plenty of people do. It takes about ten seconds. For the senate... not so much. This year, the senate election in New South Wales has 110 candidates. You can either provide a single vote for one party (your preferences will be distributed according to whatever deals that part has made), or you can individually rank all 110 senate candidates. The ballot paper is a meter wide. Oh, and the desks you use are typically wide enough to fit an A4 sheet of paper. Nobody bothers. It's just way too much hassle.

coffeecheque 13y ago
There are interesting projects out there to help you organise your Senate papers before you go to the booth. Check out http://belowtheline.org.au http://belowtheline.org.au or http://senate.io http://senate.io