I’m voting for Trump.
I don’t like him, and I don’t particularly trust him, but I like and trust Clinton even less. It’s a pity that John Kerry, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, and John Hickenlooper aren’t running.
Writing a name on the ballot and voting for the person whose name you wrote, as opposed to voting for one of the names pre-printed on the form.
How do Australian ballots work?
The place I vote now uses paper ballots, and there’s a pencil to blacken the oval next to your candidate’s name. There is also a space with the oval and a line where you can literally “write in” the name of someone who isn’t listed on the ballot.
I don’t know how you’d do that on one of the computer touch screen machines or on the old school “pull the lever” type machines for that matter.
Australian ballots are anonymous, and whilst some people are actual members of political parties, no assumptions are made on voting day as to the way someone is ‘likely’ to vote.
So at the age of 18, everyone is expected to be enrolled under the rules of the Australian Electoral Commission. You are enrolled in a certain electorate, depending upon your address…which is updated each time you move house.
Come election day, you attend your local polling booth, have your name crossed off (by an AEC worker, with a ruler and pencil :D) then you’re handed two sheets of paper, one to vote in the lower house (House of Representatives) and a HUGE one for the upper house (The Senate).
Then you toddle off to a cardboard booth with pencils attached by string (so you don’t steal them I guess). On the H of R paper, you might have say seven candidates, and you mark your FIRST preference 1, then all the other candidates in order down to 7 which will be your LEAST preferred candidate.
The Senate ballot paper is more confusing, with this year having over 100 candidates…you had the choice to mark your first six and no more, or to mark each and every one from 1 - 100…
Then you fold your ballot paper and stick it in a cardboard box.
kambuckta, how does the ranking thing work when the votes are tallied?
kambuckta: Can you vote for someone whose name isn’t already on the ballot?
OK…this is a little complicated. For a better description you can google ‘preferential voting systems’ but I’ll give it a shot!
In Aus (lets just say for the House of Reps for now), there are two main parties Liberal and Labor (roughly equivalent to the Repubs and Dems but NOT equivalent at all if you know what I mean).
Most people vote for either the Libs or Labs, but a growing minority of voters go for the ‘minor’ parties who have no chance of actually getting a seat in most electorates.
What happens then, is that the second preference of the voter is added to that candidates numbers…and if that candidate STILL fails to win enough votes to get a seat, the THIRD preference is added to that candidates raw numbers, and if THAT candidate still doesn’t have enough votes to get a seat…all the way down to the last preference.
Liberal ballot papers will nearly always have Labor as their last preference (and vice versa) but with some loony fringe parties might put the Loony Party as their last.
With the rise of The Greens Party, preferences are actually quite important in the Aus electoral system, because depending upon who sucks up to The Greens more, determines whether the Libs or Labs get THEIR preferences when it comes down to the line.
Does that make sense??
All the candidates running for election in a particular electorate are already named on the ballot. They have to register with the AEC to be considered to be included in an election. You cannot vote for someone not on the voting paper…doing so results in your vote being declared invalid, or in more colloquial terms, a ‘donkey vote’.
So, writing, "I WONT MY UNKEL JIM TO BE PRIME MINSTER ‘COS HIS SMART’ will nullify your vote. And your Uncle Jim won’t be the next sitting member, even if all of your 15,298 ‘cousins’ vote for him too.
OK…just read what I wrote and it makes no sense whatsoever!
I’ll give a concrete example: in my hypothetical electorate (Kambuckistan) there are five candidates trying to secure a seat in the House of Reps.
1: Liberal candidate: Doug the Lawyer
2: Labor candidate: Harry the Plumber
3: Greens candidate: Fleur the Naturopath
4: Naturists candidate: Nigel the Nudist
5: Anti Big Pharm candidate: Angie the Anti-vaxxer.
In Kambuckistan there are 100,000 people registered to vote. Because it’s crappy weather, and because some folks have moved and not yet been added to the electoral rolls, only 80,000 turn out to vote on election day.
Of that number, 30,000 have Doug as their FIRST preference, so he starts off with that number of votes. Harry ALSO has 30,000 votes as first preference…so it’s neck and neck.
This is where it gets interesting. Fleur gets 10,000 first pref votes, but cannot win the seat…so her votes get redistributed to the other parties depending upon where the voter allocated them. Let’s assume Fleur wanted her preferences to go to the Doug the Liberal Party candidate…then that means Doug now has 40,000 votes compared to Harry’s 30,000. Doug wins, right?
Not necessarily. Voters do not have to abide by the preferred voting options of the candidate they actually voted for. So half of the people who voted for Fleur voted Doug as their second option, and half voted for Harry as their second option. Now they have 35k votes each. Still neck and neck.
Nigel got 5,000 first pref votes. He cannot win the seat, but he listed ANGIE as his second preference, and Fleur as his third preference. Angie also got 5k votes, so she (if the voters voted according to the preferences listed on the ballot paper) now has 10 votes (hers and Nigel’s). But with just 10k votes, those preferences are now distributed back to Fleur…who now has 20k votes.
Fleur still doesn’t have enough to win the seat, and her votes are then distributed to the major parties again (Doug and Harry) according to the preferences of the voter…in Kambuckistan, half and half.
And that is why, folks, we have a dead-lock in the Aus elections held last Saturday…with neither major party being determined to have a majority in government.
You’ve got my vote!
Almost anyone on this board would be more honest (though Hillary might have us all beat on Actual Experience).
Which reminds me of what Pat Paulsen used to say, “I’m neither left-wing or right-wing. I am middle-of-the-bird.”
Either Clinton or Zoltan istvan. My state is not a swing state, if it were I’d be 100% Clinton. But since it doesn’t matter and this is the first election with a Trans humanist candidate, I’ll write him in.
I feel about the same (I live in CA). If my vote mattered*, it would go to Clinton. But it doesn’t, so that gives me the luxury of voting 3rd party, and I probably will.
*Yeah, I know that one vote never really matters even in swing states, but I still wouldn’t want to take the chance. In CA, there is essentially zero chance Trump is going to win.
The farther Trump goes along though the more important it is that he not only lose the electoral college but that he lose a historically humiliating defeat both in Electoral College and in the popular vote that completely repudiates all the intolerance and hate that he sells, that demonstrates clearly that is not what this country is. A loss of 6 points and a reasonable EV loss is not a solid enough defeat to give that message.
For him to lose in a way that emphatically repudiates intolerance and hatred, there would have to be no more than a small number of voters who harbor and reward intolerance and hatred. Given that he actually won a major party nomination that way, ISTM you’re improperly focusing on the result rather than the cause.
Frankly, I’m shocked that as of now, there are even seven dopers willing to vote for Trump. There are so many things I don’t understand in this world…
In retrospect, it’d be interesting to see “Trump, because I am a fan” and “Trump, because Never Hillary”
It would be helpful if he were also seen to have been a massive drag on Republican Senate, House, and statehouse candidates. Except for a handful of the very bluest districts in the country, everybody can get in on this.
I asked the following question in another thread a few weeks ago, but never got a reply AFAIK: To the people who feel that their state is a lock for Clinton, and you are proposing to vote for someone else, because you feel your vote FOR Clinton isn’t needed, WHY take the chance? If enough people in your state feel as you do, and they DO vote for someone else, it’s certainly possible to deny Clinton the win.
For whatever reason you ARE voting for someone else: shits and giggles; protest; just to see what happens, exasperated Berniebros et al, can you not see the seriousness of doing so, IF enough voters do what you’ll be doing. This election is bound to be close, so ANYthing that can be done to shore up a Clinton win SHOULD be done. I am very fearful of waking up the day after the election and finding out my scenario will have come to pass. PLEASE, talk me down. 
I really don’t think so. Trump will carry my state, and a few other reddest of the red, but I’m expecting a landslide for Clinton in the electoral college. Then again, a review of my posting history will show that I’m really bad at predicting elections…