[EM] Election day in Australia

[Etjon Basha]

A bit of a bother, especially the 12 on the Senate side. Showing my
ignorance here, but what issue would there be in allowing voters (who, in
this particular case, have to show up on pains of a fine) to rank as many
of as few as they like, and show approval by proxy that way? Exhausted
votes? So what?

On Sat, 3 May 2025, 11:33 pm Chris Benham via Election-Methods, <
election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

>
> The "Leader of the Opposition"  (the leader of the parliamentary Liberal
> Party, Peter Dutton ) has conceded defeat.  So the Labor federal government
> stays in power and the current Prime Minister keeps his job.
>
> I was compelled to vote today, and if I wanted to have my vote counted
> (and possibly affect the result) I had to strictly rank all seven
> candidates for the single-member district  I live in (in the state of South
> Australia) for a seat in the House of Representatives.
>
> I dislike compulsory preferences, but I don't notice anyone else
> complaining about them. I consider them are far lesser evil than any
> limitation on the number of candidates a voter can rank, as happens in some
> parts of the world that use some version of Hare/IRV.
>
> The GIGO  (garbage in, garbage out) effect of compulsory full-ranking is
> much lower with Hare than it would be with a Condorcet method or Borda.
> And the days when most of the voters had an FPP mindset and the way you
> vote for party X is to blindly follow X's "how-to-vote card" handed to you
> by a volunteer as you enter the polling station are  mostly over (or at
> least have receded a lot). So is there is less of the effect of
> transferring some power from voters to small parties whose candidates get
> eliminated.
>
> As well I voted among 39 candidates to fill six vacancies for the Senate,
> using STV-PR (semi-corrupted into a sort of fixed List PR).  The candidates
> were in 16 party groups plus one "Ungrouped" group.  Each group had a least
> two candidates and at most four (but I assume five and six are allowed).
> I could either ignore the groups and number at least 12 candidates, or I
> could ignore the individual candidates and vote  "above the line" and
> number at least 6 groups.
>
> Australia has a "Westminster" style parliamentary system and the house of
> parliament on which the government is based is elected using single-member
> districts.  The election campaigns tend to be quasi-presidential with a lot
> of focus on which leader of one of the two major parties voters want to be
> Prime Minister and much less on individual local candidates.
>
> One way I think this can be undemocratic is if the leader of the winning
> party fails to keep his seat. Peter Dutton I gather is not completely safe
> in his seat. It could have happened that a majority of voters voted Liberal
> because they wanted Peter Dutton to be Prime Minister but were denied just
> because the voters in his district rejected him. So then the PM would be a
> Liberal MP elected by the Liberal MPs to be the new leader of the
> parliamentary Liberal party, someone the majority of voters may dislike or
> know little or nothing about.
>
> The leader of a major party is obviously far less likely to lose his seat
> in a multi-member district using PR.  And that problem can't exist in a
> system where the head of the government is directly elected.
>
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
>
>
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916
>
> In short:
>
> Peter Dutton will become the first federal leader of an opposition to lose
> his own seat.
>
> Mr Dutton has conceded he has lost Dickson.
> What's next?
>
> The Liberal Party will have to search for a new leader.
>
>
>
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060
>
> "I think we've seen across the country independents doing well … some who
> haven't quite won a seat but have made a seat marginal for the first time,
> and I think that's more and more people wanting a different kind of
> politics in Australia," Mr Pocock said.
>
>
> Chris B.
>
> On 3/05/2025 11:38 am, Rob Lanphier via Election-Methods wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> Australia is holding an election now.  Rumor has it (or should I say
> "rumour has it") that these are the best places to track the
> Australian election results:
> * https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
> * https://results.aec.gov.au/
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election
>
> Anyone got other reliable sites to track in real-time?  If (by the
> time you read this), the important elections have all been decided,
> I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the results (especially
> an informed opinion).  The math on this one should be interesting...
>
> Rob
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