Yes, I was being a bit facetious, but it’s not that far off. If you vote “above the line” there’s no easy way to find out where your vote can go.
If you vote “below the line” you have to find 12 acceptable parties to give your vote. I have an overall idea of maybe a half dozen parties’ ideology, but not a dozen.
“Above the line” should be cut.
" Below the line" should have all the parties listed and you number only the ones you want, a single choice or all of them. no one else should get your vote.
Much simpler and your voice is never traded in back room reciprocal deals. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be like that, except for politicking
Oversizing is simple enough too. If you need 50000 signatures to get on the ballot and more than twenty parties manage that, just up it to 75000 next time.
You need to vote for 12 candidates, not 12 parties.
In a half Senate the LIBs will have 6 candidates, LABs will have 6. Vote just those tickets and you’ll have cast a valid vote and picked five winners out of six.
Well over 80 per cent of Australian voters vote above the line.
Which is what happens now, except a minimum 12 lest your vote be invalid.
My apologies to our Canadian friends for hijacking the thread over archaic procedural issues from another jurisdiction.
Horrible might be a bit strong, but I agree that mandatory voting should not be implemented in Canada. If a person is satisfied with not voting, I’m fine with that. I don’t agree with their choice, I think the electorate have a responsibility to stay informed and should vote but I would be opposed to it being forced on somebody. When I say I want higher voter turnout and higher voter satisfaction, I’m talking about people who might want to vote but are discouraged by the system, for whatever reason.
Mandatory voting isn’t so bad if you just think of it like jury duty. I wouldn’t advocate for it but it’s not totally crazy.
BeepKillBeep, do you have any numbers to look at regarding “better feelings about election outcomes”? Obviously, we can’t just rely on hiw many of your acquaintances feel like their votes don’t matter. Is there anything to show us democracies with proportional representation are happier or have more trust in the system?
For the Senate each state elects 12 senators for 6 year terms, though usually voting is for half the senators every three years. Because these elections are determined using proportional representation there are usually a lot of candidates, have been over 200 in some occasions.
Therefore for ease of voting the Senate ballot paper is set out in two sections
Above the dark line on the ballot paper are the various parties/groups.
Below the line is the full list of individual candidates in columns by party/group.
Until 2016 you could simply place “1” in a box above the line, say column E then you were allocating your vote to that party/group and the preference flow was determined by that party. If your candidate was eliminated, your vote went to the next on the party’s preference list, repeating until all quotas were filled. The preference flows for the fringe/minor parties were byzantine in their complexity. If you gave them your vote it was impossible for anyone to know where it would end up until the votes were tallied.
From 2016 you could rank as many parties as you chose and if the candidates you’ve nominated are all eliminated, then your vote exhausts and no longer counts.
So for NSW in 2016 LAB preference flow was:
Labor
Greens
Renewable Energy Party
Animal Justice Party
Australian Sex Party
Liberal Democrats.
NSW 2016 LIB preference flow was:
Liberal/National
Christian Democratic Party
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers
Family First
Liberal Democrats
Motoring Enthusiast Party.
If you vote “below the line” you cast your vote for specific candidates, and that is precisely how your preferences flow.
Until 2016 to vote below the line you needed to rank all candidates.
From 2016 it’s optional to rank more than 12.
2013 WA Senate Group Q (Stop the Greens) received 2,074 votes
plus below the line David FISHLOCK 125 and Kim Alexander KINNINMONT 16
Total 2,215 requiring 187,183 to win a quota.
Their primary votes were distributed mainly to the Liberal Democratic Party and when the LDP was eliminated the block ended up with Wayne DROPULICH of the Australian Sports Party who picked up the 5th spot.
But when FISHLOCK (Stop The Greens) was eliminated a small block of his second preference votes actually went to The Greens. So not only was this curiosity theoretically possible, it was the explicit choice of some of his supporters.
The Greens picked up 124,354 primary votes and after preferences won the 6th and last spot.
So I looked up Stop The Greens, wondering why they didn’t call themselves The Pollution Party, and found them to be the average conservative rugger-bugger unthinking outdoors hearties one would expect in sports-loving rural areas.
Allied to the conservative Liberals, they have specifically Australian concerns, such as stopping the menace of Scientific Marine Parks, and old-fashioned liberal guff that aids the wealthy, less regulation and fewer taxes.
And deregulating Paintball.
Thank go to imgonnasaythisonce whose YouTube site has engaging reviews of all Australia’s 54 parties.
Nearly Heinz level. Which must be a shock to Yanks who effectually have only two.
I wasn’t horrified by anything in the poll, but I was mildly disappointed that they didn’t have anything similar to my preferred system (MPs are elected by riding using FPTP, but there are a small number of additional MPs that are allocated proportionally based on the popular vote).
Golly. That’s different.
I see I gave no link for the estimable imgonnasaythisonce. For an Aussie he speaks softly: were he a singer, ‘Whispering’ would be his prefix, as it was for many singers in the '20s and '30s.
Sorry for the delay. I did not see your request. Some of what I cite is from New Zealand’s experience. I think New Zealand is an apt comparison to Canada as we both have similar cultures as Commonwealth countries.
The authors note a shift in positive public opinion with respect to trust and efficacy of gov’t. In particular, I would point out the uptick by 12% (from 80 to 92) in “My vote really counts” [1]. (it is open source so you can read it all)
Same authors as above, of note here is the improve support for proportional representation after implementation. [2] (also open source)
The following two papers show that large parties suffer most under PR including possible reduced turnout. Personally, I consider less party line loyalty to be a feature and not a bug but I feel that it is worth mentioning. [3,4]
There are also several more recent papers that indicate that candidate focused voting systems have higher satisfaction rates. [5,6,7]
That’s why I have a slight preference towards instant runoff (IRV).
[1] Banducci, S. A., Donovan, T., & Karp, J. A. (1999). Proportional representation and attitudes about politics: results from New Zealand. Electoral Studies, 18(4), 533-555.
[2] Banducci, S. A., & Karp, J. A. (1999). Perceptions of fairness and support for proportional representation. Political Behavior, 21(3), 217-238.
[3] Karp, J. A., & Bowler, S. (2001). Coalition government and satisfaction with democracy: An analysis of New Zealand’s reaction to proportional representation. European Journal of Political Research, 40(1), 57-79.
[4] Brockington, D. (2004). The paradox of proportional representation: The effect of party systems and coalitions on individuals’ electoral participation. Political Studies, 52(3), 469-490.
[5] Farrell, D. M., & McAllister, I. (2006). Voter satisfaction and electoral systems: Does preferential voting in candidate‐centred systems make a difference?. European Journal of Political Research, 45(5), 723-749.
[6] Aarts, K., & Thomassen, J. (2008). Satisfaction with democracy: Do institutions matter?. Electoral Studies, 27(1), 5-18.
[7] Shugart, M. S., Valdini, M. E., & Suominen, K. (2005). Looking for locals: voter information demands and personal vote‐earning attributes of legislators under proportional representation. American Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 437-449.