Comment by aspensmonster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aspensmonster | Hacker News Reader

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Australian election politics sounds like a genuine labyrinth. And I thought the primary process in the US was difficult to wrap my head around. Compound this with what, according to bentoner's link [0], sounds like substantial internal conflict within the party, and I don't have high hopes for the success of the Wikileaks party in Australia this go 'round. Though honestly, it sounds like they're just discovering that a democratic, Kumbaya approach is anathema to actually getting anything done. It all works great when everyone agrees. When divisive decisions have to be made and stuck by? Not so much. Dr. Mathews appears to agree:

>He really ought not to have set up a party with internal democracy.

[0] http://danielmathews.info/blog/2013/08/statement-of-resignat...

EDIT:

Excerpt from Wikileaks party response

https://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/the-wikileaks-party-announ...

>If we are unsuccessful in having the AEC adjust the submitted preference nominations to meet the National Council’s directives, we will release a “how to vote below the line” card so all supporters and voters can follow our true preference nominations, or select their own, so any remaining errors on our GVTs will not be passed on to our voters.

If I'm understanding this right, the Australians have the privilege of instant run-off preferential voting, and still prefer to just vote party line? Could an Aussie please explain this phenomenon to me? Coming from the states, I'd be frothing at the mouth to have anything other than our absurd closed (depending on state) primary single-vote elections.

Bear with me, this could take a while...

OK, so there's two elections going on simulateously - one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate. Just as in the US, each electoral district (there are 150) elects a single member to the HoR, whereas each state elects multiple members to the Senate. In the case of the Senate though, each state is treated as one giant electoral district with proportional representation.

Both the HoR and Senate elections use single-transferable-vote ("instant runoff"), but this obviously plays out very differently in single-member electoral districts versus multi-member proportional districts.

HoR ballots tend to have a reasonably small number of candidates - between 3 and about 15, but usually somewhere nearer to 6. On these ballots, a full preferential ballot is the only option - you must number all candidates in order for your vote to count.

Senate ballots, however, are ballooning somewhat out-of-control. At the upcoming election, the Senate ballot paper in NSW will have 110 candidates. Requiring voters to number all of these squares for their vote to count was causing the informal ballot count to increase substantially, so in the 1980s "above the line" voting was introduced. Under above-the-line voting, you can simply indicate a vote for your preferred party ticket, and your full preferences will be allocated according to the ticket that the party submitted to the electoral commission prior to voting. These preference tickets are publically available, and the current controversy surrounds the party tickets lodged by Wikileaks in some states. "Below the line" voting is still available as an option (and obviously one I personally will be taking up).

There is growing recognition of the perverse results that "above the line" voting can cause, and of course 1-metre-wide ballot papers with over 100 candidates listed are absurd. There is some talk of allowing "optional preferential voting" above the line, so that you can just number the party tickets in your preferred order, rather than having to either number every single candidate individually, or accept your preferred party's direction of preferences in its entireity.

Thank you. Why is it that you must number 100+ boxes? I can certainly see why many would be put off having to do so. It would make more sense to me if you simply numbered the candidates you actually had a preference for, and anyone else on the meter-long ballot didn't get a vote at all. I imagine that would cut down substantially on fringe candidates cluttering up the ballot. It seems that the official parties actually do get this privilege --I've only heard of the major parties mentioning their relative preferences to each other, with no mention of 100+ rankings (edit: or is there indeed a full ranking the party submits, but only the top relative positions are typically reported in the news?). However, if you wish to vote purely according to your own preferences, you're saddled with a ballot that folks will undoubtedly scour for their handful of preferences to truly mark, and then blindly count up to 100+ from top to bottom so that their ballot "counts."

EDIT: Many thanks to coffeecheque, Volpe, BlackAura, and any others that help to explain all of the news I've been reading recently :)

It's all published before hand. The deadline was the weekend, which is why we're seeing all the stories about preferences now.

In the Senate, parties lodge Group Voting Tickets (GVTs) with the Australian Electoral Commission. If you vote "above-the-line" (say for the Liberal Party) the GVTs dictate where the preferences should flow.

The AEC did have PDFs of the GVTs, but I can't find them now. The ABC has published them here (in an easier to follow format): http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/gtv/

The reason why the candidate quit was in part because of the NSW Wikileaks preference deal: http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/gtv/n...

You can see at spot 36 and 37 the preference going to Australia First. Its chairman is a former neo-nazi, convicted in the 1980s of organising a gun attack on someone from the African National Congress. The first Greens candidate is down in the 50s.

As for why we have to number all the boxes, I'm not entirely sure. It probably didn't matter so much back where there were only a handful of candidates. It doesn't work so well when there's more than 100.

I see. So each party typically acts as a cluster. They may have their own internal rankings within that cluster of candidates, but on the whole parties will typically only be concerned with cluster rankings. That is to say, most parties won't bother with going through 100+ candidates' platforms entirely individually, and you'd expect to see all (or most) of a given party in a block on the ranking, rather than sprinkled throughout.

Senate Preferences for Party A:

1 - PARTY A - John

2 - PARTY A - Jane

3 - PARTY A - Mike

4 - PARTY A - Jennifer

5 - PARTY B - Napoleon

6 - PARTY B - Elizabeth

7 - PARTY B - Bob

7 - PARTY C - Austin

8 - PARTY C - Emily

9 - PARTY B - Patrick <- (For whatever reason, Party A just really doesn't like Patrick at all)

10 - PARTY D - NeoNazi <- (Crazies at the bottom)

And so on and so forth for 100+ candidates. The abc.net.au preference listings seem to show this sort of line up. (And there seem to be a ton of parties: Stop CSG Party, Australian Sex Party, Help End Marijuana Prohibition, Smokers Rights Party, Stable Population Party)

I can certainly see how administrative error could creep in here --and sabotage as well. I still find myself preferring an election system like this however even with the bloat :)

Yep.

Though you have obviously worked out ways to game the system. It's happening more and more.

For example, in Victoria, a group of five libertarian aligned micro-group parties (headed up by the Liberal Democrats) didn't lodge their GVT, meaning you now can't vote for them above the line.

As most (95%) of people vote above, that's wiped them out in Victoria.

But here's the realpolitik: they had organized a straight preference swap deal nationally with the Australian Sex Party, which had a chance of making quota (aka winning a spot) with the help of the preferences in Victoria. It's less likely now in that state.

But the Sex Party has lodged its preferences in Victoria and other states with flows to the Lib-Dems. It means the Lib-Dems can avoid helping the Sex Party win a Victorian spot (and possibly balance of power in the Senate) but maybe win its own spot in other states (and also, balance of power).

It is complicated and strategy matters big time.

Oooohhhh that is devious. So the Australian Sex Party is trying to break into the Senate and have a say nationally. Their best bet on securing a seat is in Victoria. With the aid of preferences in Victoria from that small group of libertarian-minded parties, that was feasible. In return, the Libertarian bloc got preferences nationally; maybe they'll win, maybe they won't. But they've got a shot. All gravy, right?

Well, actually, the Sex party also had preferences nationally with the Liberal Democrats (whether the Lib-Dems were above or below the Libertarian bloc in those preferences is irrelevant, as we'll soon see). And it just so happens that the Libertarian bloc --that the Sex party is counting on to get their seat in Victoria-- had substantial backing from the Lib-Dems. By hook or by crook (hint: crook), the Lib-Dems utilize their influence over that libertarian bloc and stop the GVT from getting lodged. Now they get to keep the Sex party's preferences flowing to them, while not having to worry about the Sex party actually gaining a seat at all! Even the threat of the remaining libertarian preferences to them in other states is minimal; they've likely got better backing from other parties anyway.

http://i.imgur.com/s2zg1qc.jpg

Even better, most of that "Libertarian Bloc" are actually just front parties for the LDP.

If you can stop numbering when you lose interest, that's the "optional" in "optional preferential voting". It's good, but we won't get it.

As things are, you always have to choose between the two right wing parties that dominate the system, even if you put them at last choice and second last. So you vote from 1 according to your preferences, give the big numbers to your least preferred, and /then/ blindly count between them.

With optional preferential voting, people who don't want either of the big two could avoid choosing between them. This doesn't happen because (what they taught us at school) there might be a tie, or you could get elected with a small number of votes, but really because (what they didn't teach us at school) the big two and their symbiotes know that it would encourage a civilised multi-party democracy in which coalitions could be negotiated and altruism might sneak in. The big two would rather take turns at being Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition than see green, liberal or socialist options get a voice. They hate it when small parties get enough power to hold them accountable, or have legislation discussed before it is passed.

I don't think that analysis holds up. Optional preferential voting is closer to first-past-the-post than compulsory preferential (in Queensland and NSW where they have OPV at a State level, a large majority tend to "just vote 1").

First-past-the-post is bad for minor parties, and would cement the two-party system. At the last election, the Greens only won the seat of Melbourne by using Liberal voter preferences to overtake the ALP candidate, and similarly Andrew Wilkie relied on the preferences of Liberal, Green and Socialist party voters to eventually win from third position. Under OPV, it is highly likely that both of those seats would have gone to the ALP.

OPV might be defensible on the grounds of reducing informality, but it would push our system closer towards FPTP and be bad for minor parties.

From memory, the NSW upper house optional preferential instructions are that you must mark at least 15 boxes. It's a balancing act between enough numbers to ensure that most ballots continue to count, but small enough to reduce the effort, and consequent informal votes due to errors, of voting below the line.

Parties do indeed submit full rankings, which are published.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/gtv/

Only the summaries get reported, for obvious reasons.

Every vote has to count to someone... so you can't have a "dead end" on a ballet (hence a vote isn't counted if it isn't filled out completely).

They preference all 100+ rankings, but do it by groups (generally). i.e. Party A will preference Party B candidates, then Party C. Though some smaller parties do very individual preferences.

> If I'm understanding this right, the Australians have the privilege of instant run-off preferential voting, and still prefer to just vote party line? Could an Aussie please explain this phenomenon to me?

We have two separate elections - one for the house of representatives, and one for the senate. In both cases, we do preferential voting.

For the house of representatives, you have maybe five or six parties running in your electorate, each with one candidate. Filling out preferences for this is feisable, and plenty of people do. It takes about ten seconds.

For the senate... not so much.

This year, the senate election in New South Wales has 110 candidates. You can either provide a single vote for one party (your preferences will be distributed according to whatever deals that part has made), or you can individually rank all 110 senate candidates. The ballot paper is a meter wide. Oh, and the desks you use are typically wide enough to fit an A4 sheet of paper.

Nobody bothers. It's just way too much hassle.

There are interesting projects out there to help you organise your Senate papers before you go to the booth. Check out http://belowtheline.org.au or http://senate.io

It's not really a labyrinth, and in this case it sounds like someone's subverted the democratic process, ie. they voted one way, but whoever sent the preferences to the Electoral Commission switched them over.

As far as the Australian preference system goes, you have a choice when voting in the lower house: You can pick one box above the line, in which case your preferences will get distributed by the party that you voted for, or you can vote "below the line", in which case you get to vote however you like.

It seems odd to me too - I put it down to Australian laziness, ie. why number 60-odd boxes when you could back to the BBQ sucking back a few cold ones? :)

It's the upper house which has above-the-line voting. In the lower house you must number every square.

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