optional preferential voting

Almost by definition, a democratic vote will always have winners and losers. But the elephant in the room is David Curtin’s campaign aimed at Claire Richardson. The new voting system in WA will introduce optional preferential voting to diminish the impact of secret preference deals. It would reduce the number of informal votes. In a local government election for a single member divided council, and when voting for the mayor in all councils, you have the choice to vote for one, some or all candidates on the ballot paper; this is optional preferential voting (OPV). Champs League Grps -- Europa Conference Grps -- Europa League Grps -- League Cup: QFs -- FA Cup 1st Round -- Socceroos World Cup Qualifiers, Tipping: Pigskin Pickem // This voting System is called “Compulsory Preferential Voting” because for a Ballot Paper to be considered “Valid” it is compulsory that every box must have a number without the duplication of any number. Here, the ABC's elections analyst Antony Green explains how "optional preferential" voting works and how it could affect Saturday's result. This system can produce similar outcomes to full Preferential Voting, but can also produce results where the winning candidate wins with less than half of the votes. Once this is understood, not only do the conclusions become expected, but a wide class of other phenomena can also be anticipated. In an election for the Legislative Assembly electors can only vote for the candidates seeking election for the electoral district in which they are enrolled. Howard Guille Howard Guille is a resident of Mooloomba who has written extensively on politics and economics including two monographs for the TJ Ryan Foundation on the performance of the current State Government. All monor parties shoul respond to aJust Vote 1 campaign by dropping the party off there preference list . It's largely unique to our political scene, reflecting the number and diversity of smaller parties that participate in elections. Only 3 more MHAs would be required to get 5 MHAs per federal seat. Labor got just 3.4% of the formal vote, yet they got 23.9% of a highly artificial 2pp, with a huge 39.6% exhausting. Janelle Saffin sits in state parliament despite losing the primary vote in Lismore by more than 14 percentage points. Found inside – Page iThis book focuses on the triadic relationship between electoral candidates and the two other poles of the delegation and accountability triangle—political parties and voters. JavaScript is disabled. Opinion Opinion Why dogged self-interest will crush the chance to make our democracy better. Discontinuing Group Voting Tickets would not ensure that Mr Tucker was not elected with Data collected by the ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, at the 2015 NSW election [10] shows the rate of Greens preferences transferring to Labor declines precipitously from 82.7% under full preferential voting to just 37.4% under optional preferential voting. Partial Preferential. An important objective of this book is to demonstrate linkages that exist among these areas of research. The voter places the number “1” in the square next to the candidate who is the voter’s first choice. Under OPV it’s possible for candidates to win with substantially less than 50% of the total vote. My choice would be that the instruction was to number all squares….. but with a savings provision…. Skip to main content Accessibility help We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Distributing preferences. https://represent.org.au/ballot-paper/ https://represent.org.au/fully-optional-preferential/. What does OPTIONAL PREFERENTIAL VOTING mean? After OPV was implemented in Queensland in 1992, the system proved very helpful to Labor at the 1998 election, when the conservative vote split badly between the Nationals, the Liberal Party and One Nation. Labor got 50.98% of the 2PP vote while the Coalition got 49.02% of the vote. Voters using an optional preferential voting system. Labor in 2015 won 9 seats from second place, one in five of the seats Labor won, as voters suddenly found a reason to give preferences. I personally come down on the side of OPV on principle – I don’t think you can justify rendering votes informal when someone has indicated a clear preference. preferential voting, arguing that the optional preferential system had 'by default brought Labor to power' because many One Nation voters had chosen not to allocate their second preferences which, Santoro believed, would have favoured the Coalition (Wanna 1999: 572). 25 years after Langer voting was abolished, I still get asked about 1,2,2 etc sequences. Voluntary voting and full preferences gives you the choice of voting for all candidates, or no candidates. This situation reached its nadir at the Bradfield by-election in 2009, where there were 22 candidates and almost 7,000 informal votes, far more than ever before in the seat. These are placed in the squares next to the candidates. What is the distribution of preferences (i.e. The problem with the idea is that most of the votes declared informal by such a provision would be for minor parties. The actual exhaustion rate was 3.4% (about 40% of the 8.3% voting for someone other than Torbay or the Nats). I support fully optional preferential voting, and suggest that the solution is to align all elections (federal, state, local) to this method, and support it with consistent messaging, such as “number as many candidates as you are willing to support”. Voting system for the Legislative Assembly. This paper looks at the arguments for and against changing Queensland's optional preferential voting system to be in line with the other states (except New South Wales) and the Commonwealth. Electoral (Legislative Council) (Optional Preferential Voting) Amendment Bill 2014 Amendment of Electoral Act 1985—Part 2 LC GP 175-B: the Hon Mark Parnell MLC 5 (3) If the voter also records a vote on the ballot paper by placing the number "2" in the group voting square for another group, the ballot Within the ALP there was also a realisation that if first past the post voting had Join FREE and support Australia's favourite footy community. Whatever system ends up being in place, there needs to be far better education, and far harsher penalties for entities that misrepresent the system. I’m a lifetime Liberal voter and support OPV on principle – even though compulsory preferences only became a thing after the Country (now National) Party formed. All rights reserved. Of the 26 contests in South Australia since 1982 where a candidate trailing on primary votes went on to win, 14 were won by Labor, 11 were won by independents or minor parties, and just one was won by the Liberal Party. Moderate, everyone else can disagree without random insults. Optional preferential voting was introduced in Queensland by the Goss Labor government and used in the 1992, 1995, 1998 and 2001 State elections. The Whitlam government attempted a switch to OPV, and the Wran Labor government introduced OPV in New South Wales in 1980. It’s harder to overtake a leading candidate when some preferences exhaust, and reduce the pool of preferences. optional preferential, where the voter is only required to show a preference for 1 candidate, but has the option of showing further preferences; and; minimum-length preferential, where the voter is required to show a preference for at least the number of candidates to be elected, but has the option of showing further preferences. The Electoral Acts of Australia need to be printed documents which are near unchangable. Partial Preferential - The elector must make a minimum number of preferences - usually this is the number of members to be elected. Under OPV, preferences are less likely to flow, and this tends to favour the candidate who is leading on primary votes. Find your NFL Team in our Teams Threads. Currently its Australian use is limited to NSW elections, although until recently it was also used in Queensland. This is a system whereby a candidate must poll an absolute majority of the total formal votes (in excess of 50% in order to be elected.) The preferential voting system in Australia was introduced just over 100 years ago by a butt-hurt Na t ionalist Government who lost a safe “Nationalist” seat to a 21 year old Labor candidate for the WA then rural seat of Swan. Optional preferential voting. MPs and the AEC still want nothing to do with such a provision given the legal action that followed from the original Langer provision. It is a complex, yet important part of the election that decides the final result. This volume constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third Conference on E-Voting and Identity, VOTE-ID 2011, held in Tallinn, Estonia, in September 2011. If a candidate in an election does not achieve a majority of first preference votes, the winner is determined by the allocation of subsequent second, third and so on preferences. Optional preferential allows a choice within a compulsory system. A Liberal voter would be forced make a preference choice between Labor and the Greens if they wanted to vote for the Liberal candidate, a choice they didn’t have to make when there was no Liberal candidate. Optional preferential voting permits voters to give their REAL preferences rather than being forced to allocate a preference when they dont have one at all. In this regard at least, vote exhaustion in optional preferential voting is not a ‘bug’ but a ‘feature’. The South Australian government announced earlier this week that they plan to introduce legislation that will change the voting system from compulsory preferential voting (CPV) to optional preferential voting (OPV). On the contrary, CPV maximises the number of votes which contribute to the final outcome of the race, when the race dwindles down to two candidates. SA has multi member electorates in its history so this would not be an unprecedented move. optional preferential voting Saturday, October 23. How Preferential Voting Results are calculated? It also removes group voting tickets and introduces optional preferential voting to combat preference deals such as the one which saw Daylight Savings Party candidate Wilson Tucker elected to … based on identified preferences to limit informal votes. Section 2.12 prescribes the process for counting votes in Senate elections. It also clearly lessens the importance of preferences in many seats. (This requirement probably makes the ballot paper the only government form in Australia on which it’s compulsory to lie.) Because it was becoming de-facto OPV. Found insideThey are optional preferential voting, various saving clauses, and ticket voting. Optional Preferential Voting Optional preferential voting (OPV) is, as described earlier, identical to full preferential AV except that voters are not ... Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Found inside – Page iiThis book examines the effects of preferential voting on intraparty electoral competition and voting behavior. there’s some level of buy in, or trust of the entity saying the preferences). Party systems change over time. Previously voters could vote 1 ‘above the line’ for their preferred party. But that doesn’t mean we should have a system which treats a simple ‘just vote 1’ as a default. Are there ever any grounds for this to occur? Unrig exposes the twisted roots of our broken democracy and highlights the heroic efforts of those unrigging the system to return power to We the People. The Melbourne Cup 2021 thread is in full gallop on the punting board. other parties mainly left of centre polled 12% most of that 12% exhausted and only about 1.5% flowed to labor. 35% of Curtin voters (4,350) indicated a preference. A case of the cure being worse than the disease. What proportion of those who voted for Curtin voters allocated a preference. I favour OPV for reasons of principle: that you shouldn’t be required to lie about a preference you don’t have, in order to express a preference you do have. (The use of optional preferential voting, as used in New South Wales and Queensland State elections, is a solution to this problem.) Any change requiring 2/3 majority inn Parliament and not taking effect for five years after passing. Seeking to initiate a "second generation" of research on quotas, this volume is an effort to inspire a new literature focused on theorizing and studying the broader impact of quotas on politics and society. Preferential Voting Systems [PDF 2.2MB] In Australia, preferential voting systems are majority systems where candidates must receive an absolute majority, more … Get to know and understand the counting system carried out at voting centres or polling places on election night. Choosing between the largest three parties is easy enough, but having to decide who gets to be in spot 6, 7 and 8 out of Socialist Alternative, the Christian Democrats and some no-name kook who wants to abolish parking meters is a pain. should one party out poll the other party the by amt of 2% or more but not do good on preferences of other parties then opv benefits that party…./eg East Hills last election the libs outpolled labor by 2% on primary votes…. Optional preferential voting is the system whereby a voter ranks candidates in order of their preference, but is not required to preference every candidate unless they wish to. Login. If gangs of thugs had invaded polling places and set fire to ballot boxes, destroying 7,000 ballots, that would make news all over the world; we should be just as outraged when it’s the law, rather than thugs, which is depriving people of their say. Thesis (B.A.(Hons.)) -- Griffith University, 2011. Karen Williams received 50.89% of the votes. Any election material on this website is authorised by Steve MacDonald of 104 Channel Street, Cleveland. The likely beneficiary of preferences is much easier to predict in a single-member election, and thus there’s an incentive for the other side to try to undermine preference flows. Optional preferential voting is used for elections for the President of Ireland and the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. In the new Senate OPV system, the voting above the line involves, according to the ballot paper, “numbering at least 6 of jurisdictions that have an optional preferential voting (OPV) system, had the highest proportion of ballots (36.40% and 36.23% respectively) categorised as informal because they numbered only one preference (Attachment 2). SA only had Family First, and they're dead now. leads to situations where due to informal votes, the presumed will of the electorate is not reflected in the final result. Claire, please run again next election. Candidates are elected to the Legislative Assembly through full preferential voting. Under fully fledged OPV any vote with a unique 1 is valid, and the voter gives as few or as many preferences as they like. Found insideThis book discusses voting procedures in collective decision-making. To be elected using the preferential voting system, a candidate must receive I see no contradiction in compelling people to vote and not making them choose between the Communist Party and the League of Rights. what proportion of those who voted for Curtin have voted 2 Richardson and what proportion have voted 2 Williams). Conversely, I see a massive contradiction in compelling people to vote and then rejecting their ballot due to absurdly harsh formality rules. There are several arguments in favour of OPV over the compulsory preferential system used in most Australian elections: Good in principle for the reasons you've listed, but not in practice. The Optional Preferential Voting system, which is used by NSW and NT lower houses, means you are not obliged to allocate preferences to candidates that you do not wish to be elected. edited 23 hours ago. This is confusing to many people as few years ago, I was advised area in which I live…i.e. Possibilities are: Optional preferential The voter need only indicate a preference for the candidate of his/her first choice and the allocation of any further preference is optional. But you don’t have to be cynical to see that in backing principle, the SA Liberal Party is also backing its own self-interest. A number of those independents went on to support minority Labor governments after the 2002 and 2014 elections. The exhaustion of the 8,078 votes that gave no preference meant in the second round of counting the majority was 50% + 1 of 77,875 and not 50% + 1 of the 85,953 formal votes cast. Found insideLively and inspiring, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage is a landmark account of the character of Australian democracy by the celebrated historian Judith Brett, the prize-winning biographer of Alfred Deakin. I don’t like OPV in the same system that has compulsory voting. Found insideEssay from the year 2003 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Australia, New Zealand, grade: Distinction, Flinders University (Social Sciences), course: Australian Politcs a comparative study, 14 entries in the ... This book assesses Australian electoral reforms of the past 30 years using personal interview data and parliamentary debates, to provide a picture of the reform process as well as the outcomes. First, sort all the formal ballot papers in candidate piles according to the voter's first preference (the number 1). Voters would still be able to mark preferences, but they would not be necessary for their vote to count. Looking for the latest mail on the Cup? We should not be afraid of any electoral change that more accurately reflects voters intentions and wishes. The joint standing committee on electoral matters claimed a shift to optional preferential voting would help address rising rates of “informal voting [2] ” in NSW caused by the differences between the state and federal systems. That party would then allocate preferences for that voter. Voting system for the Legislative Assembly. Great post Ben. Found insideInstitutional inertia, nevertheless, causes large delays in updating and adapting. Therefore, the balance between participation and delegated representation is now facing a crisis. The committee's research agenda has been designed to supplement the work of other groups, particularly the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, which issued its final report in December 1997. First, sort all the formal ballot papers in candidate piles according to the voter's first preference (the number 1). Then, count the number of first preference votes for each candidate and record these totals in the 1st count column of the Tally sheet. Informal votes Prior to the election, it was reported that internal Labor analysis predicted an additional 800,000 informal votes as a result of the new Senate voting system, given the AEC would not have sufficient time to educate voters about the change. CTRL + SPACE for auto-complete. “Just vote 1” and “Remember to number every square” materials are designed to influence the voting patterns of voters who are NOT following a how to vote card and are more effective the less people understand our electoral system. It definitely isn’t a well informed decision to have one’s vote exhaust. I even get asked about it under OPV when it is completely unnecessary. The Handbook of Electoral System Choice addresses the theoretical and comparative issues of electoral reform in relation to democratization, political strategies in established democracies and the relative performance of different electoral ... From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering? Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Optional preferential voting would mean that votes would be counted as long as there was a single ‘1’, even if there were no further preferences. In a full preferential voting method, voters are required to mark a preference for every candidate standing. under optional preferential voting constituted an effective burden upon the franchise. The article diverts attention from the actual campaign for Mayor. Overall optional preferential voting has a principled advantage over full preferential voting in cutting the informal rate, and in not forcing voters to express preferences they do not have. I look forward to WA introducing it one day. Optional preferential voting would mean that votes would be counted as long as there was a single ‘1’, even if there were no further preferences. Does Australia have full, free and fair elections? The authors of this informative, entertaining volume tell of political forces and personalities which have shaped Australia's electoral system. That Group Voting Tickets be abolished and replaced with Optional Preferential Voting for the WA Legislative Council with voters instructed on the ballot paper as follows: • For voters Above the Line, to mark one or more squares. So you end up with a dilemma: do you ensure maximum numbers of votes are formal, or do you use a strict rule to force more of those voters to number enough preferences to prevent their vote exhausting? Write CSS OR LESS and hit save. South Australia’s electorates are quite small in population and are approaching 5 per federal MP. Voting in NSW is different from every other state. 7. Optional preferential voting is the system used to elect members to the University Senate. I think we’ve seen a way forward in the Senate reforms introduced prior to the 2016 election. Back in 2005, my local electorate had a by-election. For more information, call the voter helpline on 1800 990 365. However the most democratic voting method is a one in the box for your candidate only like in the UK. It may come down to reforms in the space rather than the system itself though. Then, count the number of first preference votes for each candidate and record these totals in the 1st count column of the Tally sheet. Optional preferential voting is exactly that and not anything else in disguise. See Also: Images of an actual ballot paper – Higgins 1990; A simple explanation of the Two-Party-Preferred Vote Regarding the South Australian initiative, I would only comment that while OPV may well be in the Liberals’ interest in the short-run, that’s not a problem in principle, since even the best electoral reforms tend to progress only when notions of good policy coincide with the self-interest of whoever is in government. During the counting process, votes are transferred between candidates according to the preferences marked by voters. CPV isn’t perfect with its preference deals (which are also a thing in OPV), but at least involve following the how to vote card from the party you are voting 1 for (i.e. Voters would still be able to mark preferences, but they would not be necessary for their vote to count. The optional preferential voting system requires a candidate to receive more than 50 per cent of the non-informal, non-exhausted ballot papers. Optional preferential voting is used for some elections in Queensland. Copyrights © 2020 Redlands2030. In theory, there is nothing stopping voters choosing to indicate preferences under an OPV system, but it does create space for parties to encourage ‘just vote 1’ campaigns when they don’t expect to benefit from preference flows. The electorate clearly voted for a change of leadership but we are now in a position of having a mayor who the majority of the community has little confidence in having received considerably less than 50% of our votes. Voters using an optional preferential voting system. There are principled arguments for such a change, as it would likely ensure more votes are counted and the informal rate drops, but it is also something which would likely help the Liberal Party in the short term against Labor – although OPV has sometimes benefited Labor over the Coalition in the past. SUBSCRIBE to the eNewsletter to get all the recent news from Redlands2030. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parlia...ary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1718/SenateVotingSystem, WA moving to 1 vote, 1 value in the Upper House. 2. FPV may not be possible if write-in candidates are allowed. In a transferable-vote system like the single transferable vote (STV) or instant runoff voting (IRV), a ballot is initially allocated to the first-preference candidate but may be transferred one or more times to successively lower preferences. With a savings provision based on full preferences and formality based on clear voter intention there is a choice of opv voting aNy way. Voters are forced to express a preference for candidates they may not wish to support in any way. It is generally agreed that the election of 2007 was an improvement on that of 2002. But problems of electoral administration and voting behaviour remain. These are identified in this volume, and recommendations made for electoral reform. You may get a stalemate where a candidate that has a lot of voters not preferencing anyone else is eliminated potentially leading to no one having majority. The notion that optional preferential is de facto first-past-the-post is spurious nonsense. The optional preferential system is described in Schedule 4 of the Local Government (General) Regulation 2005. Its obvious the majority of Redlanders wanted you as mayor. I don’t believe there is an equivalent in relation the current Senate savings provisions, so you could in theory run a “Just Vote 1 above the Line” campaign. The outcome of it is irrelevant if it is closer to accuracy. If the wider electorate were better educated about how their vote works, I'd be warmer to it. Voting for WoolPoll 2021 closes on Friday 5 November. Hare-Clark works in Tas because the electorates are relatively small (in both population and area). If a rate has a majority of votes, based on the number of votes on which a first preference is indicated for each rate, that rate will be declared to be elected.