[EM] Australia: MP says donation row highlights voting proble ms

[LAYTON Craig]

Markus wrote:

>Do how-to-vote campaigns have such a big influence for the elections to the
>lower house of Australia? I have read many papers about the big influence
>of how-to-vote campaigns under proportional representation by the single
>transferable vote. But I have never read papers discussing the influence
>of such campaigns under Alternative Voting.

Yes, I posted only recently that how-to-vote cards are extremely important
in Australian politics.  At the last election, the two major parties joined
forces / exchanged preferences over a new extreme right party that was
gaining support rapidly.  By that, I mean that they put each other second
last on their how to vote cards, and One Nation last.  Perhaps as a result,
One Nation was squeezed out and didn't win any lower house seats.

For most STV proportional elections, we have the option of voting "above the
line", where you tick a single box for a single party, which corresponds to
a full list of preferences "below the line" (where all candidates are
listed).  90% - 95% of voters vote above the line, so how to vote cards
don't really mean anything, but, obviously, a party's preferences are very
important.  In the past, I think there were cases of 'dummy parties' set up
by one of the major parties to feed preferences.  This is still common in
local council elections using STV PR.

But, how to vote cards are important in Australia for a number of reasons
that don't exist elsewhere;

1) Party support is very stable and parochial.  Most people vote for the
party that their parents voted for, and most people always vote for the same
party their whole lives.  A strong Labor party supporter is happy to follow
his party's suggestion on how to vote.

2) Voting is compulsory, so many voters don't know anything more than the
two major parties (or maybe three or four), and don't care enough to think
closely about ranking, so they just follow the ticket of the party that they
intend to support.

3) You must number all candidates.  There are always candidates that no
one's heard of, so people are naturally worried about helping to elect such
candidates.  As a result, they use the major party's tickets as a guide
about who should get their preferences.

It should be noted that it is not only major party supporters, minor party
supportes follow how to vote cards as well, based on the issue that the
minor party is supporting.  ie; the Greens might 'punish' an incumbent
government for a particularly bad environmental policy by giving preferences
to the opposition.  This has a far greater effect on the outcome of upper
house elections than lower house elections.