[EM] Australia: MP says donation row highlights voting problems

[David Catchpole]

I don't think they have as much impact as some people think, but if you're
cynical about the intelligence of voters... also, in federal elections,
where preferences are compulsory, the level of arbitrariness in voters'
choice of vote would be expected to increase, and when it comes to
elections of Senate preference deals become very important as most voters
vote "above the line" so that their preferences are prepared by the
party they voted for and are not written on the ballot.

On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, Markus Schulze wrote:

> Dear Craig Layton,
> dear David Catchpole,
>
> Rob wrote (1 Dec 2000):
> > An Australian MP is claiming that it may be time to rethink preference
> > voting, adopting a first-past-the-post system instead, because how-to-vote
> > tickets improperly influence voting behavior.
>
> 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.
>
> Markus Schulze
>
>
>

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