We have to vote for both houses of Parliament. For the Legislative Assembly (the lower house), the state is divided up into 93 electorates. The number of candidates for each electorate is usually only about 4 or 5 or so.
But for the Legislative Council (the upper house) the whole state votes as a single electorate. And because the voting is via a proportional representation system every minor party and independent crackpot in the state nominates. The result: 333 candidates and a ballot paper as big as a tablecloth! The electoral office will probably have to widen the voting booths yet again this time around so that voters can spread out the ballot paper.
A sample of the non-mainstream parties on the Legislative Council ballot paper:
[ul][]The Fishing Party[]Australians Against Further Immigration[]Christian Democratic Party[]Restore the Workers’ Rights Party[]The Shooters Party[]Horse Riders Party/Outdoor Recreation Party[]Socialist Alliance[]Save Our Suburbs[*]Human Rights Party[/ul]
That’s exactly what I expect if Wisconsin adopts the state funded elections, some people were trying to get. I say spending caps is the way to go. People that can’t get any supporters will be signing up, and people looking for some fun money. Let’s all have a campain banquet with all the best food and booze, and party like it’s the end of the world. Who cares if we get elected, the party is free. Homeless can sleep in the campian headquarters they rent until the election. :smack:
So, there are more than in 1999, when there were about 260 candidates! I was a scruntineer for the ALP at my local polling booth, and at the end of polling, asked if I could have a copy of the poster that was supposed to be put up at every polling place. (It wasn’t at mine, and I suspect that it wasn’t at most.) It’s a complete list of how each of the parties in the election directed their preferences for thoe who voted above the line. Since there were 80 parties, and some parties split their preferences, the poster has more than 100 copies of the “table cloth” ballot paper – 26 sheets, with 4 ballot papers on each sheet. It’s a very interesting political souvenir.
I don’t think it’s the prospect of state funding that brings all of these micro-issue candidates out of the woodwork. There’s a threshhold which a candidate must meet before any funding is received. I think it’s 4% of the total first preference votes. The vast bulk of these candidates won’t get anywhere near that.
It’s more likely that it’s the combination of a proportional representation system, coupled with the opportunity to negotiate favourable preference flows, that tempts them. Previous upper house elections have resulted in some micro-party candidates getting across the line as a result of quirky preference flows.
You used to have to number all of the candidates in order, and the vote was counted as informal if you got any of the numbers wrong. It was a real pain to check the ballot papers with large numbers of candidates, but fortunately with these elections with several hundred candidates, this is no longer required.
Details vary, but generally there have been two reforms:
(1) with multi-member electorates (such as the Australian Senate and the NSW Legislative Council) you can vote for a party ticket by marking the box for the party above the line on the ballot paper. That means your preferences will be allocated in accordance with the published list of preferences given by that party to the electoral office.
(2) generally with preferential elections (one member or multi-member), giving preferences is now optional. You may number as many boxes as you like, starting with 1. If you make a mistake (e.g., by repeating a number or missing a number), your preferences will be counted as far as possible, and then your ballot paper will be set aside as having its preferences exhausted.
These two things have reduced informal votes considerably. Now, the majority of informal ballot papers appear to be deiberately informal, e.g., no numbers at all, or a 1 in every box.
A sample of the non-mainstream parties on the Legislative Council ballot paper:
[ul][li]The Fishing Party[]Australians Against Further Immigration[]Christian Democratic Party[]Restore the Workers’ Rights Party[]The Shooters Party[]Horse Riders Party/Outdoor Recreation Party[]Socialist Alliance[]Save Our Suburbs[]Human Rights Party[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Hmph. None of them look as interesting as the Natural Law Party, although some quick googling leads me to believe that it has fizzled most places. Canada used to have the Rhinoceros party; I was sorry to see it go - it was handy when you wanted to vote for “none of the above”.
