Australian IRV voting

[David Catchpole]

It has indeed, seeing as though there's actually a big _three_, Labor and
two conservative parties, the Liberals (the big big conservatives) and the
Nationals (the little big conservatives). Especially in my neck of the
woods (Queensland), where we have difficulty determining the difference
between rural and urban, the two conservative parties often run against
each other in a "three-cornered contest." But that's still very much down
to the line of a mainstream party vs. another one. There have indeed been
cases where the loser out of the final two candidates has come from a
minor party. It's rare, but it happens. A high profile case was in the
1998 federal elections for Mayo, an Adelaide division for the House of
Representatives. In the end it was doyen-of-conservative-patrician-family
Alexander Downer
vs. Australian-Democrat-former-member-of-Red-Gum-I-can't-remember-his-name. The
Australian Democrats are a smallish centrist party that often hold the
"balance of power" in the Senate and that have never won a House of
Representatives seat. Their vote is strongest in South Australia, which is
where Mayo is situated. Anyway, Mr. Guy With A Plum In His Mouth Who You
Probably See Occasionally On US News 'Cause He's The Foreign Minister And
All won. The point though is that it's rare and that even then one can see
a bi-partisan pattern emerging.

If one wishes to strategically vote in STV, one doesn't go about it by
ranking a likely winner first. One selects unlikely winners so that one's
vote gets bumped around rather than lost to exclusion. That said, many
voters probably resign themselves to one of the big-"two" winning and
express their preferences amongst them first.

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:

> 
> 
> David--
> 
> But hasn't it ever happened that a candidate other than the big-2
> was strong enough to eliminate one of the big-2, but then lost?
> 
> What about what Tom Round said, about small parties having a difficult
> time getting their voters to not vote one of the big-2 in 1st place?
> Has anyone expressed concern about the situation in the previous
> paragraph, and talked about insincerely voting one of the big-2
> in 1st place?
> 
> Mike
> 
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