[EM] Election day in Australia

[Chris Benham]

Etjon,

There is no concept of "approval" in STV.  But from my point of view, no 
problem allowing voters to rank or truncate as much as they like 
(especially in the single-winner case).

But I think the official thinking is that compulsory preferences are in 
the "spirit" of compulsory voting.  Since everyone has to obey the laws 
passed by the legislators and the government will (very likely)be formed 
by one or another major party, then the government is more legitimate if 
everyone is coerced/cajoled into expressing a preference for one of the 
major parties over another.  If people could show up and just 
bullet-vote for "nobody", what is the point of them voting?  And if 
there is no point in them voting then how can we justify forcing them to 
vote?  (Still possible in my opinion but maybe more difficult.)

What I consulted to help decide how I would vote:

https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt


On 3/05/2025 11:09 pm, Etjon Basha 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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>     ----
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>
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