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 Voting for who? 
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Postby Macc » Sun Jan 24, 2010 12:51 pm


SKaVeN wrote:
But the fact still remains that if you're someone who chose someone who polled a small minority on you're first choice, your ballot paper is counted again picking your second choice

No your ballot is NOT counted again! Your preferences are distributed.

SKaVeN wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, if they count down to one of my last two or three preferences, then clearly that is not someone who I wanted my vote to count towards

It is because you indicated who your 2nd, 3rd, etc preferences were.

SKaVeN wrote:
but most of the ballot papers get counted several times

Wrong. None of the ballot papers are counted more than once. Each vote only counts once. If there is no candidate with a majority then the preferences of the smallest candidate are distributed. Most preferences are not distributed and the count rarely has to go past the 3rd preferences to get a majority.

SKaVeN wrote:
Regardless of whomever the voter actually wants their vote to count toward, it always goes to one of the major party members.

Not always. There are independents in the House of Reps.

SKaVeN wrote:
I think it's manipulative & it does not an honest representation of the true opinion of the constituency.

It is a truer opinion than first past the post. Look up Duverger's law to understand why.

SKaVeN wrote:
Instead of making voters choose each one in order of preference, why not give them a choice? Why not let them tick one box above the line & all of the boxes in order below (like they have to do for the senate)

The Senate single transferable vote system doesn't work for single member electorates. If you put a 1 above the line on the Senate paper you are accepting the party's preference deals with the other parties. Preferences are still distributed but you are letting somebody else choose for you.


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Postby modecko » Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:22 pm


Good explanation Macc and in all things psephological and Australian political Antony Green is your friend.

Actually for stuff to do with psephology Possum is right up there.


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Postby SKaVeN » Sun Jan 24, 2010 4:40 pm


So if someone has a clear majority in the first count that's it & they don't look at anyone's second preferences?

Okay, that was my bad. I thought they just kept removing whichever candidate polled the lowest & reusing the ballot papers until they only have two candidates left. I recant my previous post in all its haughtiness, Macc. Blame my year twelve legal studies teacher & third semester politics lecturer at TAFE for that. I should've known not to listen to anything that legal studies teacher said. I remember my first day in her class arguing with her because she started talking about something called a "Liberal Caucus"... :oops:

modecko wrote:
Non-compulsory voting helps one party more than any other and that's conservative parties, which is why they are the loudest and most insistent on trying to get compulsory voting overturned and voluntary voting introduced.

But is that the same as saying that Labor parties depend on the politically apathetic vote more than the conservative parties? :???:


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Postby modecko » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:34 pm


SKaVeN wrote:
modecko wrote:
Non-compulsory voting helps one party more than any other and that's conservative parties, which is why they are the loudest and most insistent on trying to get compulsory voting overturned and voluntary voting introduced.

But is that the same as saying that Labor parties depend on the politically apathetic vote more than the conservative parties? :???:

No Skaven not at all, and you really are selling the average Australian voter short, who are amongst the most politically savvy voters in the Western World.

Non-compulsory voting advantages the conservatives for several reasons but one is their supporters are more apt to turn up to vote for their party , no matter how bereft or terrible that party is. Liberal (small 'l') voters are more reluctant to vote for the lessor of two evils if a progressive party is is not up to scratch. Conservative governments in non-compulsory voting systems are also apt to disadvantage non-conservative demographics. Take George W Bush in his deliberate manoeuvres to cut out whole black areas from voting. Howard also made moves to limit the voting of groups who are more likely to vote liberal than conservative, prisoners for example, and changing the voting registration cut off time for young first time voters because they overwhelmingly favoured Labor.

What we are talking about here are the roughly 40 to 50% of non-rusted on supporters, with about 24-30% of people being rusted on for either party but I think favouring the conservatives more as Australia is basically conservative, which is why Rudd Labor is really little different to the standard Liberal party. Howard moved the conservatives further right which was his eventual undoing.

So in most cases the rusted on supporters are going to vote anyway but the non-aligned voters that can be up to 50% of voters, but are usually around 40%, are going to be the ones who are the most unlikely to turn out if there is no real choice of parties. It's not apathy but they think the lesser of two evil voting is pointless if the major parties are really little different from each other and there is no clear alternative in their local area. Whenever there has been a clear alternative or a clearly superior candidate these non-aligned voters have always shown a great zeal to go out an vote for them.

Not voting in a non-compulsory system when there is no credible candidate is not a sign of apathy but of political savvy. Having to vote means these people will chose the lesser or two evils but they will think about it and make their vote on informed choice. To sell Australian voters short on this is to be ignorant of the average Australian non-aligned voter's political savvy and intelligence. I know it counts for nothing as it's just local and not indicative of all Australians booths, but in my over 30 years of voting in the booths I have lined up at waiting to vote the voters have all been lucid and intelligent in their conversations of the politics and policies.


Last edited by modecko on Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.



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Postby modecko » Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:40 pm


There is a Liberal caucus if you are talking about big L Liberals Skaven.

As I said Antony Green is your friend:
Quote:
Turnover on the frontbench can occur within the party caucus, but renewing the caucus requires the Liberal Party to elect new members at the 2010 election. Some of those new members will enter Parliament via marginal Labor seats. But for the Liberal Party to re-build for the future, it also needs to refresh the ranks of its MPs in safe seats. That requires existing MPs to either make way, or for other members of the party to challenge for party endorsement.
or
Quote:
The need to renew the Liberal caucus saw rule changes introduced. In the late 1980s, Victoria changed its rules to make it easier to challenge sitting Liberal MPs. This played a part in David Kemp and Peter Costello entering Parliament in 1990.

From Greg Barns (political commentator):
Quote:
Senator Troeth and her colleagues Petro Georgiou, Russell Broadbent, Judy Moylan and the now retired Bruce Baird have always known that the Liberal Party’s moral compass had been lost on this issue. They have for many years now been brave voices who have opposed the detention of women and children in particular and forced showdowns in the Liberal Party caucus.

Lot's of other references to the Liberal caucus if you look.


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Postby HumphreyBBear » Sun Jan 24, 2010 6:37 pm


Macc wrote:
Simple majority (first past the post) has big problems if there are more than 2 candidates. If there are 3 candidates and one gets 40% of the vote and the other two get 30% each, how is it fair that somebody gets elected when 60% of the voters voted for somebody else?


Just as fair as this:

(100,001 votes)

First preferences:

Party A: 40,000
Party B: 30,500
Party C: 29,501

Party B just manages to escape elimination, at the expense of Party C.
Party C is eliminated, and its preferences distributed.

Two Party Preferred count:

Party A: 50,000 (10,000 preferences from Party C)
Party B: 50,001(19,501 preferences from Party C)

So, Party B goes marching off to Canberra, claiming a "mandate to govern", although, when we look at it, the election was won on the basis of only the second preference of 4,751 voters from Party C.
Therefore, about 4.7% of the electorate decided the vote. Guess why the are so many "stooge" candidates standing in your local electorates. :wink:

I am not suggesting that "first past the post" is the best solution, but I can't agree that our current system is effective.


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Postby modecko » Sun Jan 24, 2010 7:48 pm


Preferential voting can be ineffective but it is one of the most effective out a whole bunch of not very effective systems.

The other options are forming coalitions or having run off elections. The former can work but on the same token can also be a total disaster, whilst the second though widely practised around the globe is probably the most convoluted and inefficient way of selecting a government.

In your hypothetical HumphreyB you isolate out 4.7% as being the number that voted in a government, but that isn't strictly correct. That 4.7% came about because it was marked on a ballot as being the voters choice if there is no clear winner. If a majority of voters wanted it clear cut then they would have either voted for Party A in a clear majority or made sure when they marked the ballot that they listed down the ballot so that the preferences went to Party A, or just followed Party A's how to vote card for the other candidates.

The mandate thing is a furphy in your example but all government's claim a mandate when they win government.

Hypotheticals are all well and truly good but just how often does an election line up exactly as your example, and if it was common then yes another system would have to be looked at, but what system? If coalitions were formed then it would still be the same problem as you would have a minor party with say 4.7% of the vote sharing government to allow a major party to win government. So I guess the answer would be a run off election between Party A and Party B?


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Postby HumphreyBBear » Sun Jan 24, 2010 10:31 pm


modecko wrote:
In your hypothetical HumphreyB you isolate out 4.7% as being the number that voted in a government, but that isn't strictly correct.


I never said it "voted in a government", that is your choice of words. My scenario pertained to a single electorate.

Can you point out the difference between my scenario and the one Macc highlighted where there was 22 candidates, and "hypothetically" one could have won with only 4.5% of the vote?
You could add the same number of candidates into the model that I outlined, and arrive at exactly the same outcome. So I cannot agree that the preferential voting system is superior.
Neither Macc's scenario, nor mine, takes into account "Donkey" votes, "stooge" candidates (which are employed by both parties as a standard tactic against minor parties), or invalid votes.

So, if you wish to catagorise my scenario as "hypothetical", then the same should be true for the other preferential voting model.
I am not saying that one-person-one-vote is better, but I am saying that the current system is morally bankrupt.

I used to vote the "Langer Vote", until the Howard government outlawed it. :punch:


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Postby SKaVeN » Mon Jan 25, 2010 4:51 pm


HumphreyBBear wrote:
Macc wrote:
Simple majority (first past the post) has big problems if there are more than 2 candidates. If there are 3 candidates and one gets 40% of the vote and the other two get 30% each, how is it fair that somebody gets elected when 60% of the voters voted for somebody else?


Just as fair as this:

(100,001 votes)

First preferences:

Party A: 40,000
Party B: 30,500
Party C: 29,501

Party B just manages to escape elimination, at the expense of Party C.
Party C is eliminated, and its preferences distributed.

Two Party Preferred count:

Party A: 50,000 (10,000 preferences from Party C)
Party B: 50,001(19,501 preferences from Party C)

So, Party B goes marching off to Canberra, claiming a "mandate to govern", although, when we look at it, the election was won on the basis of only the second preference of 4,751 voters from Party C.
Therefore, about 4.7% of the electorate decided the vote. Guess why the are so many "stooge" candidates standing in your local electorates. :wink:

I am not suggesting that "first past the post" is the best solution, but I can't agree that our current system is effective.


Which is the point I was trying to make (until I eventually gave up :lol: ), Humpy. Thank you.

If someone wins by a clear majority of the total vote it's decided & over & done with which is honky-dory.

But, as you say, what if the highest polling candidate on received 40% of the total only the first preference count?

If you only had nine of more candidates & then, in order to resolve that, only recounted the ballot papers in the lowest polling candidate (counting the second preference) it's highly likely that you'd still not have enough extra numbers to have a clear majority. Then you'd have to got to the next smallest pile & count their second preference (or third preference in the case of the ballot papers in there that were initially redistributed from the first eliminated pile). The further & further you get down preferences, the less the voter obviously wanted that candidate so the initial winner can be usurped by someone that people don't necessarily prefer.

Some of the electorates had over a dozen candidates so, when you've got that many & have got a clear majority of vote on first count, you'd going to have to redistribute possibly several of the smallest piles & counting me peoples fourth preference. If they put someone that far down they probably don't want to & only numbered them because we have a system in place that says we have to select from the candidates we wouldn't want as well as the ones we would.

That's why I suggested the idea of letting people choose how many preferences they want themselves instead of telling them they have to select every single one of them. Sure, it means that their vote may eventually not count but surely that would be better then it being able to count toward one of the candidates they didn't want...

And I know what you're going to say. If too many people only pick three or four candidates we may not have enough preferences to keep working down until we get a candidate with a clear majority. But that would only happen if all the people who only picked three or four preferences used them on the first three of four candidates who were eliminated (which is highly unlikely)...


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Postby Macc » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:05 pm


SKaVeN wrote:
That's why I suggested the idea of letting people choose how many preferences they want themselves instead of telling them they have to select every single one of them.

That used to possible. You could write 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 and your preferences would be exhausted after 3. However it was an offence to advocate voting that way. The Electoral Act has since been amended and such voting is now considered an informal vote and are not counted. If you vote below the line on the Senate paper may fill in 90% of the boxes.

Queensland has optional preferential voting and one effect of this is vote splitting. Under compulsory preferential voting preferences usually flow from the smaller to the larger of two aligned parties, e.g. National and Family First to Liberal or Green to Labor. This does not always happen with optional preferential voting. At the last 4 elections many seats were lost to Labor on exhausted preferences for the Liberal and National Parties, whereas most Green preferences flowed to Labor. This is one of the reasons the Liberal and National parties merged into the LNP.

Smarter psephologists than any of us have been over and over this for decades.


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