[EM] 12/22/02 - Markus Schulze Wrote and Wrote again:

[James Gilmour]

Adam had written:
> > >  In large district STV
> > > elections in Australia, 95% of the voters vote for pre-determined party
> > > orders, which basically makes STV degenerate into closed party list.

I replied
> >This is not so much an effect of "large" districts, but rather an effect
> >of the
> >compulsory vote and the desire of the political parties to maximise their
> >control
> >over their supporters.

So Adam asked:
> Please elaborate - don't you see it as a problem that the vast majority of
> Australian voters essentially vote in a closed party list style?  What
> would you change to solve this problem?

Yes, I deplore the incorporation of anything into the voting system that has the
effect of encouraging a "closed party list approach" in any election, especially
an STV-PR election.  This negates the whole idea of voter choice and the personal
selection of the candidates whom you consider can best represent your views.

My original comments (above) were intended to explain that this undesirable
practice was the result of some features of Australian electoral law and not
because of the size of the STV-PR districts.

To deal with this problem in Australia, I would end compulsory voting and end the
requirement for every voter to mark every preference (something I should have
mentioned in my previous post).  The first is undesirable and the second is
ridiculous.  It is desirable that all electors should vote, but compulsion is not
the answer in a democracy.  It is a negation of free choice to insist that a voter
marks "preferences" for candidates for whom he or she has no preference.  Free
choice is the essence of STV-PR, so the Australian approach is completely at odds
with that.  Australian voters must mark a "preference" beside every candidate,
otherwise the ballot paper will be rejected as invalid (Australian law calls it
"informal").  I believe it was to deal with the understandable frustration of
electors having to mark every candidate that the "vote the party ticket" facility
was introduced.

Parties in Australia have long used "How to vote" cards to guide their supporters,
in IRV elections as well as in STV-PR elections.  (NB IRV is used much more in
Australian public election than STV-PR.)  I don't see anything wrong with this -
parties will always want to do it.  What was wrong in Australia was that, for the
reasons explained above, "guidance" was institutionalised into "party list voting"
in the electoral system.

James

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