An outline of the australian preferential voting system

An Idiot’s Guide to the Australian Preferential Voting System

The House of Representatives
Also known as the “lower house”, consisting of local MPs
There are currently 150 electorates (or divisions, or seats), thus each represents approximately 150,000 people
The lower house predominantly consists of members of the two major parties

Assumptions
To explain how voting works, let’s assume that:
in your local electorate, there are four candidates: Labor, Liberal, The Greens, and Family First
your ideological preferences are The Greens, then Family First, then Liberal, then Labor
there are 120,000 valid votes in your electorate

You complete your ballot exactly in accordance with your preferences, and it looks like this:

Counting first preferences
After the polls close, all 120,000 valid ballots are collected
all first preferences (ie all the number 1s) are tallied
if any candidate receives 60,001 or more first preferences, they become your local MP and no further counting is required

No outright winner
But more likely, the first preference votes would look something like this:
Labor 54,000
Liberal 52,000
Green 8,000
Family First 6,000
Nobody has enough votes to win outright
The party with the least number of 1st preference votes – in this case Family First – is eliminated

First elimination
Now the ballots of the 6,000 people who voted Family First number 1 are re-examined, and their 2nd preferences are tallied
It turns out that when you tally the number 2s of those 6,000, you see this:
Labor 1,000
Liberal 4,000
Green 1,000

Distribution of preferences
These are then added to the 1st preference votes of the other 114,000 votes, and the tally now looks like this:
Labor 54,000 + 1,000 = 55,000
Liberal 52,000 + 4,000 = 56,000
The Greens 8,000 + 1,000 = 9,000
Still nobody has the 60,001 votes required to win the seat, so counting continues
The party with the least number of votes at this point – The Greens – is now eliminated

Second distribution of preferences
So now they go back again to the ballots which made up the Greens’ 9,000 votes, which are those which looked like either of these:

Winning the seat
Now they count up the next preference of those voters, and find:
Labor 6,000
Liberal 3,000
Adding this to the previous votes:
Labor 55,000 + 6,000 = 61,000
Liberal 56,000 + 3,000 = 59,000
Labor now has more than the 60,001 votes required to win the seat

The Senate
Or “upper house”
Each state has 12 senators (2 for each territory), elected in accordance with the percentage of the vote which they attract in their state/territory
There are 76 senators in total, so there is a senator for approximately every 300,000 people (on average)

Senate ballot papers – why so huge?
Senate ballot papers generally have a lot more boxes on them than House of Representatives ballots, for two reasons:
Each party has multiple candidates, and
Minor parties have a much better chance of winning a Senate seat, so this is where all the minor parties put up candidates
So if you’re electing 6 senators (except for a double dissolution, only half the senators are put to a vote each election), the major parties may put up 5 candidates each, and the minor parties 2 candidates each, for a total of 14 candidates
In reality, there can be, and often are, dozens of candidates

Voting “above” and “below” the line
The standard way of voting for the senate is to number all 14 boxes from 1 to 14, in order of preference (“below the line”)
Because there can be so many senate candidates, and numbering all of them can be time-consuming, the option of voting “above the line” was introduced
What this means is that if, as in your example, you like The Greens, and are happy for The Greens to direct how your preferences will be distributed, then you can simply put a number 1 next to The Greens “above the line”

Obviously, if you’re considering voting “above the line”, it’s important that you know how your preferences will be distributed, and that your “number 1” vote doesn’t divert your preferences to candidates who you find objectionable.

Above the line voting
This is an “above the line” vote for The Greens. Your preferences will be distributed in accordance with instructions from The Greens to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Counting “above the line” ballots
The Greens may have specified that their preferences go first to Labor, then to the Liberals, then to Family First, in which case your “above the line” ballot really ends up being counted as though it were completed like this:

If you want your preferences distributed differently, and in accordance with your stated ideological preferences, then you need to complete every box below the line:
Below the line voting

Now, counting senate votes...
This one’s quite a bit more complicated, but very interesting. Hold on!
There is a certain number of votes which have to be attained in order to gain a Senate seat. It varies by state, but for these purposes, let’s say that it’s 300,000 votes.
So firstly, all the number 1s - below the line – are counted on all the senate ballots.

First preferences
The first preferences are counted, and the tally looks like this:
Liberal Candidate 1 1,650,000
Labor Candidate 1 1,350,000
Greens Candidate 1 230,000
Family First Candidate 1 70,000
Both the Liberal and Labor first candidates have enough votes to win a senate seat and are elected

Apportioning your vote
These two candidates have far in excess of the 300,000 votes required to win a seat, so each vote is apportioned, or split into fractions of a vote.
So if you had voted 1 for Liberal Candidate 1, 300,000/1,650,000 = 18.2% of your vote is counted towards that candidate.
The remaining 81.8% of your vote now goes to the candidate you put as number 2.

Apportioning your vote (cont)
If everybody who had Liberal 1 as 1st preference, had Liberal 2 as 2nd preference, then Liberal 2 would get 81.8% x 1,650,000 = 1,350,000 votes. They also have easily enough for their seat, so they actually only need 300,000/1,350,000 = 22.2% of your vote to win their senate seat.
So after two distributions, if you voted Liberal 1 then Liberal 2,
Liberal 1 has been elected and has had 18.2% of your vote
Liberal 2 has been elected and has had 22.2% of your vote, and
you still have 59.6% of your vote to count towards your lower-preferenced candidates

Apportioning your vote (cont)
Your vote continues to be distributed in this manner until none of the remaining candidates reaches the 300,000 threshold
Then, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their preferences distributed, and so on, until all senate seats are filled
Your vote will almost always end up split amongst a number of candidates, in accordance with how many other people voted similarly, and your preferences

Take-home messages!
It isn’t really possible to “waste” your vote, provided you make a valid vote. So vote in the order that’s consistent with your preferences, even if it’s for a minor party.
Don’t vote “above the line” for the Senate unless you’re comfortable with the way that your number 1 party will distribute your preferences!

Your vote is powerful. Use it responsibly.
Tracey Bryan
traceybryan9@gmail.com
20th August 2010

An outline of the australian preferential voting system

by Tracey Bryan on Aug 20, 2010

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