Australian Multi-Member Multi-Constituency Elections

[IH Farrow]

Donald

Try the Proportional Representation Society of Australia WWW Home Page.  

http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~lee/prsa/index.html

These guys are the 'real gurus' when it comes to issues such as the proportionality of election results.  Their analyses are published in a document called 'Quota Notes'.  Their WWW site has links to everywhere.

In brief reply to the issues you raised:

1.	I don't believe there is any gerrymandering in Australia (any longer), since in every jurisdiction the electoral boundaries are now determined by processes that are independent of the Parliaments.  In Tasmania for example, the 5 Federal electorate boundaries are used as the basis for the multi member electorates, so the State politicians don't have any influence at all.

2.	Yes, Hare Clark does effectively remove one quota from the count, I don't think it would work otherwise.  There must be some losers in an election and the number of votes 'wasted' through this process depends upon the number of positions to be filled.

3.	Agreed.  I can't say that I like the idea of different quotas in a range of multi member constituencies.

Regards


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

  
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