[EM] Diane's comments on Recount and Party Proportionality:

[Donald Davison]

Comments on Recount and Party Proportionality:


  ------------ Forwarded Letter -------------
From: "Crabb, Deane (PIRSA)" <Crabb.Deane at saugov.sa.gov.au>
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:13:33 +1030
Subject: RE: Recount and Party Proportionality:

The reason in Australia that often only the ballots for the vacating member
are re-examined is that it is these voters that have lost their
representative.

Tasmania has probably used this re-count method the longest. As most voters
tend to vote first for all candidates within the list of their favourite
party, most parties put up many more candidates that they expect to get
elected. Then if there is a recount it means the replacement is more likely
to come from the same party.

This certainly happens in the major parties. But when a recount was
conducted to replace an Australian Democrat member who was resigning from
the Tasmanian Parliament to contest the Australian Senate, the recount
elected Bob Brown, an Australian Green (and now their Federal leader).

It should be noted that in Tasmania the Robson rotation is used so that the
order of the candidates within each party list varies from ballot paper to
ballot paper.  This means that voters need to know not only which party they
wish to support, but also which candidates for that party they wish to vote
for.  With 5 members to be elected from each electorate, voters have to mark
at least the numbers 1 to 5, with the option to mark more numbers if they
wish.

Deane Crabb


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Reply to Diane's comments on Recount and Party Proportionality:

Hi Diana, you wrote:

"This certainly happens in the major parties. But when a recount was
conducted to replace an Australian Democrat member who was resigning from
the Tasmanian Parliament to contest the Australian Senate, the recount
elected Bob Brown, an Australian Green (and now their Federal leader)."


Donald: This is a piece of interesting information.  It clearly shows that
the voters are willing to change the proportionalily of the original
election at the time of the replacement recount.

Can you give us more information on this election of Bob Brown??

That is, do you know what percentage of the quota did Bob Brown need to win
the election??


Thank you,

Donald,