[EM] Election day in Australia

[Michael Garman]

Your message got me wondering — has a party leader ever lost their seat
while winning the election?

The answer appears to be yes, at least twice — Mackenzie King was defeated
in both 1925 and 1945 while Labour won in Canada. Both times other MPs
resigned immediately to allow him to rejoin Parliament via by-election and
reclaim the premiership. If anyone has additional examples, please send
them — I find this fascinating.
On Sat, May 3, 2025 at 9:39 AM Etjon Basha via Election-Methods <
election-methods at lists.electorama.com> wrote:

> 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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