[EM] 02/02/02 - FWD - The Australian Senate:

[Donald Davison]

02/02/02 - FWD - The Australian Senate:

  ------------ Forwarded Letter ------------
From: "Crabb, Deane (PIRSA)" <Crabb.Deane at saugov.sa.gov.au>
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 10:05:21 +1030
Subject: RE: [STV-voting] 01/29/02 - The Australian Senate:

You may be interested in a current example - the South Australian State
election is on at February 9.

The Legislative Council (upper house) is elected in virtually the same
manner as for the Australian Senate.

The State is considered as one electorate with 11 Legislative Councillors to
be elected (half the Council is elected at each election).

There are 76 candidates contesting the election.

Candidates for each party are grouped together on the ballot paper in the
order chosen by that party.  The positions of the parties on the ballot
paper is chosen at random.

To vote, an elector has the choice of voting above or below the line on the
ballot paper.

To vote above the line you only need to put a '1' next to a party box.  This
means your vote will be counted as if you gave preferences to all 76
candidates but in the order as registered by that party.

To vote below the line, you have to mark a preference for all 76 candidates
1 to 76 in the order you choose.

As you can imagine, over 95% of voters will quite understandably vote above
the line and can you blame them!  I am seriously thinking of doing this
myself - there are a few I like, some I don't, but most of the 76 candidates
I know nothing about at this stage of the campaign - should I try and work
out my preferences, or just accept the ticket from the party of my choice?

David Hill in the November 2000 issue of "Voting Matters" (British Electoral
Reform Society) summed this situation up well in an article "How to ruin
STV".   I think we are coming to the stage where it has to be called a list
system.

There is some hope of getting a slight change.  For the New South Wales
Legislative Council where there are 21 to be elected, optional preferential
voting has been introduced, so that below the line you only need to mark 15
preferences for a formal vote, or you can vote above the line and mark more
than a number one (means that you can choose between the party lists).  But
only parties with 15 or more candidates will have a box above the line.

The Proportional Representation Society of Australia's preference is not to
have above and below the line voting at all, and with optional preferential
voting.

This is the case for Tasmania's Legislative Assembly (lower house) and now
for the Australian Capital Territory Assembly (both use STV).  In addition,
the candidates within each party group are rotated (called the Robson
Rotation where ballot papers are printed in batches with different orders
used).  This means that candidates even within a party have to compete to
get elected.

[Note: Deane Crabb is the National Secretary of the PR Society of Australia.]

-----Original Message-----
From: donald at mich.com [mailto:donald at mich.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 29 January 2002 19:19
To: stv-voting at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [stv-voting] 01/29/02 - The Australian Senate:

Dear Ren,
You wrote: "Donald once told me that such recognition is necessary if the
parties want to support STV. I must remind him, and everyone, of Australia,
and its so-called STV system they use for the Senate. There, people can
vote for parties, and the system makes it awfully enticing not to vote for
individual candidates. Then again, I remind readers of this list that the
PRSA believes that this system is not STV but a list system in disguise. -
- - Thank you to Donald and Tom for provoking our next thread of
discussion." Ren A.

Donald: Whatever the method is, it is not party list if a voter is free to
rank candidates across party lines.

Regards, Donald Davison,                      http://www.mich.com/~donald

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   |                        Q U O T A T I O N                          |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |        except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."   |
   |                           - Age 10 -                              |
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02/02/02 - The New South Wales council:

Dear Deane,

Yes, I am very interested in your post of 30 Jan 2002.

I have a few questions.  You stated that there are 76 candidates contesting
eleven seats.  That seems like a lot of candidates under normal conditions
for only eleven seats.

One question is:  In the current election are the parties required to have
a certain number of candidates in order to have a `Box' above the line?

If so, how many are they required to have in this upcoming election?

How are the votes above and below the line tallied?  Are the votes mixed
somehow?


You wrote about the New South Wales council: "...or you can vote above the
line and mark more than a number one (means that you can choose between the
party lists)."

Does this mean that the voter will be able to rank political parties?  If
so, this is something I am in favor of.

Since your society prefers not have the system of above and below the line,
your society should consider a system in which the voters will be able to
rank candidates and/or parties together in any mix, that's the future for
partisan elections.

Regards, Donald Davison