Truncated ballots

[IH Farrow]

Steve Eppley [SMTP:SEppley at alumni.caltech.edu] wrote:

>We might look to Australia, which provides a truncating 
>shortcut used by most voters in Australia's STV proportional 
>representation elections.  The shortcut allows the voter 
>to select one party instead of ranking all parties' candidates.  
>(In other words, contrary to conventional belief, Australia 
>doesn't really use STV PR; they use party list.)  

1.	Australia does not have a party list system in any elections.  Confusion may be caused by the system introduced in 1984 for Senate elections (largely for the convenience of the political parties) which enabled voters to place one mark in a square indicating an intention to cast a ballot in accordance with the voting ticket submitted by that party organisation. By marking the 'above-the-line' square the voter is able to indicate support for the ordinal ranking submitted by the party organisation.  It is correct that more than 90 per cent of voters choose to use this 'above-the-line' voting method.  The ballot is however, still regarded in the same way as an STV ballot in which the voter had ordinally marked every square on the ballot paper.   

2.	STV proportional representation is also to elect Legislative Councils (upper houses) in the States of New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia.  The South Australian system was formerly a party list system, but this was abandoned in favour of STV proportional representation.  I am unable to say whether elections for any of these State legislatures also have an 'above-the-line' voting option.  

3.	Two lower house Australian legislatures, namely the Tasmanian House of Assembly and the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly also use STV proportional representation.   Candidates names are rotated on the ballot papers in a system called Robson Rotation, which means that no candidates within party groups benefit through positioning on the ballot paper.  There is no facility for 'above-the-line' voting.  Casual vacancies are filled through a re-count system to determine the candidate that is next elected.  

Regards


Ian Farrow	
e-mail: 	ifarrow at aip.com.au
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