mikelincs

Can you not just vote for your first choice, even though you have more votes, I've done this in organisations where I just don't want any other candidate. If I've given no preference to any other candidate, then if my candidate loses in the first round at least no other candidate will get my vote.
In Spain it's pure PR, you vote only for a party, and once the votes are counted to seats get allocated according to the number of votes each has received, the candidate choice is by the order on the party list, which you see when you get the bzllot paper.

fish.01

Some elections/houses you have to preference every candidate in your preferred order, some you can just preference if you want to, some use first past the post.

BadgeIsBack

Federal election. The big one.

Can you say 1 - this man/woman. (I realise that you're voting for the local candidate but hey.) Then leave the rest blank?

fish.01

No, KJCherokee gives a good explanation of the federal voting in post #3 if you're interested.

roaringmouse

Although I was living in Melbourne before we came to the UK for a while, I am registered as an overseas voter in Lilley. Now to decide which of the ALP or Liberal candidates I would like least in Lilley, and vote for them when the time comes... I can't stand Swan so he has a good chance of getting my vote. Doesn't Brisbane do postal voting for council elections? In Melbourne a lot of the local councils only do postal votes, so you get sent the form and have a certain date to get it back.

chris955

The problem with the Australian voting system is that come September either Gillard or Abbott will be in charge.

Mr Grumpy

Or Rudd.

BadgeIsBack

So for the time being, we're 'forced' to have our votes distributed in order of preference. Seems to me then that I have to gen up on the candidates and rank accordingly if I want to take the process seriously.

BadgeIsBack

Too right. This is the biggest problem this year, the candidates, not the voting system, IMHO. If this poor choice was represented in FPTP, we would have a similar problem. One of them would get in probably or one would be forced to align with another party to form a government - which is what happened with First Past The Post in the UK last time, and here in Australia.

Swerv-o

Exactly - but this is politically apathetic Australia - So the majority won't...


S

Wol

No system is perfect, but at least with the FPTP the person who is elected has had more votes than any of the others - seems fair to me.

The preferential system to me is a travesty of what democracy should be: it is only kept in place because the major parties want to be able to use your votes the way THEY want - not the way YOU want. So unlikely to be changed.

BadgeIsBack

Most people are 'pathetic' (he he - see what I did here) enough to vote 1 for the person who pisses them off the least surely.

You'd have to have a lot of time on your hands to gen up in any country that uses the same system.

Isn't a paradox that on the one hand Australia is generally politically apathetic yet everyone has to vote - and so unless they spoil, they have to put a 1 and a 2 somewhere. I think Australia is much more pathetic in encouraging quality pollies to rise to the top.

What are the percentages of people spoiling their vote. This would be some mark of how apathetic/pathetic (which word do I need this time I wonder!) Australian voters are.

BadgeIsBack

What is the system that the UK Lib Dems wanted? (Granted - because they wanted a bigger slice of the pie).

When you talk about major parties using your votes the way they want, are you talking about above the line voting (for the Senate if I am not now mistaken and you do have a choice to vote below the line) or for the lower house? Certainly for lower house, aren't the votes distributed from the person that came last, based on the way people voted.

I would suggest that in practise,people vote 1,2 in Australia (and maybe 3) for the major parties so it's probably not an issue.

Swerv-o

So is FPTP not the most representative system at seat level? it could be argued that it may be, but when the seats are aggregated over the country, it often follows that the ruling party is not the party that obtained most of the popular vote nationwide. But trying to represent that leads to PR and the splinter parties - unquestionably under PR fringe parties like the NF could gain a legitimate seat.


S

BadgeIsBack

This is the argument, possibly. Either way, I still think it's 'democratic'. Parties like the NF can get a foothold, and in the UK, the Lib Dems argued they might win a few more!