02/02/02 - FWD - The Australian Senate: ------------ Forwarded Letter ------------ From: "Crabb, Deane (PIRSA)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 10:05:21 +1030 Subject: RE: [STV-voting] 01/29/02 - The Australian Senate:
You may be interested in a current example - the South Australian State election is on at February 9. The Legislative Council (upper house) is elected in virtually the same manner as for the Australian Senate. The State is considered as one electorate with 11 Legislative Councillors to be elected (half the Council is elected at each election). There are 76 candidates contesting the election. Candidates for each party are grouped together on the ballot paper in the order chosen by that party. The positions of the parties on the ballot paper is chosen at random. To vote, an elector has the choice of voting above or below the line on the ballot paper. To vote above the line you only need to put a '1' next to a party box. This means your vote will be counted as if you gave preferences to all 76 candidates but in the order as registered by that party. To vote below the line, you have to mark a preference for all 76 candidates 1 to 76 in the order you choose. As you can imagine, over 95% of voters will quite understandably vote above the line and can you blame them! I am seriously thinking of doing this myself - there are a few I like, some I don't, but most of the 76 candidates I know nothing about at this stage of the campaign - should I try and work out my preferences, or just accept the ticket from the party of my choice? David Hill in the November 2000 issue of "Voting Matters" (British Electoral Reform Society) summed this situation up well in an article "How to ruin STV". I think we are coming to the stage where it has to be called a list system. There is some hope of getting a slight change. For the New South Wales Legislative Council where there are 21 to be elected, optional preferential voting has been introduced, so that below the line you only need to mark 15 preferences for a formal vote, or you can vote above the line and mark more than a number one (means that you can choose between the party lists). But only parties with 15 or more candidates will have a box above the line. The Proportional Representation Society of Australia's preference is not to have above and below the line voting at all, and with optional preferential voting. This is the case for Tasmania's Legislative Assembly (lower house) and now for the Australian Capital Territory Assembly (both use STV). In addition, the candidates within each party group are rotated (called the Robson Rotation where ballot papers are printed in batches with different orders used). This means that candidates even within a party have to compete to get elected. [Note: Deane Crabb is the National Secretary of the PR Society of Australia.] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, 29 January 2002 19:19 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [stv-voting] 01/29/02 - The Australian Senate: Dear Ren, You wrote: "Donald once told me that such recognition is necessary if the parties want to support STV. I must remind him, and everyone, of Australia, and its so-called STV system they use for the Senate. There, people can vote for parties, and the system makes it awfully enticing not to vote for individual candidates. Then again, I remind readers of this list that the PRSA believes that this system is not STV but a list system in disguise. - - - Thank you to Donald and Tom for provoking our next thread of discussion." Ren A. Donald: Whatever the method is, it is not party list if a voter is free to rank candidates across party lines. Regards, Donald Davison, http://www.mich.com/~donald +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ | Q U O T A T I O N | | "Democracy is a beautiful thing, | | except that part about letting just any old yokel vote." | | - Age 10 - | +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 02/02/02 - The New South Wales council: Dear Deane, Yes, I am very interested in your post of 30 Jan 2002. I have a few questions. You stated that there are 76 candidates contesting eleven seats. That seems like a lot of candidates under normal conditions for only eleven seats. One question is: In the current election are the parties required to have a certain number of candidates in order to have a `Box' above the line? If so, how many are they required to have in this upcoming election? How are the votes above and below the line tallied? Are the votes mixed somehow? You wrote about the New South Wales council: "...or you can vote above the line and mark more than a number one (means that you can choose between the party lists)." Does this mean that the voter will be able to rank political parties? If so, this is something I am in favor of. Since your society prefers not have the system of above and below the line, your society should consider a system in which the voters will be able to rank candidates and/or parties together in any mix, that's the future for partisan elections. Regards, Donald Davison
