[EM] Election day in Australia
Chris Benham
cbenhamau at yahoo.com.au
Thu May 15 12:48:35 PDT 2025
An interesting video on a channel I recently came across:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFD5npXRYi8
> Here's Why Australian Elections Can't Be Rigged | AUSPOL EXPLAINED
> Auspol Explained
> 28.3K subscribers
>
> 63,337 views May 12, 2025 #40 on Trending
> Every election there'll be someone unhappy with the results and
> someone claiming it was rigged. But in Australia that kind of claim
> just doesn't stack up. There is a LOT of scrutiny on Australian
> elections! They're also run by independent electoral commissions. So,
> if you doubt their validity or if you're just curious about all the
> levels of details, security, scrutiny and transparency that goes into
> ensuring that elections are fair and conducted impartially then here's
> an episode explaining just how hard it is to do anything dodgy. This
> may also help you provide rebuttals to anyone claiming in your life
> "it was rigged!" simply because they don't like a result.
>
> Learn more about elections and voting in Australia at:
> https://aec.gov.au/
>
> You can get a copy of the script with citations here:
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wKgiSj9llxqeID746WS532mhOZR65gp1/view?pli=1
I watched all of it and thought it was fine.
Not discussed in this video but it also helps a lot that the Hare method
used is Clone Independent.
Chris Benham
On 5/05/2025 2:22 am, Chris Benham via Election-Methods wrote:
>
> In practice in Australia there is nothing stopping anyone from voting
> "informally" by say just submitting a blank ballot.
>
> I consider such "compulsory voting" to be a small evil which guards
> against much greater potential evil. If the state is compelling you
> to vote then it must of course make sure that you have an opportunity
> to vote.
>
> Regarding "levels of ranking" there is never any "space" issue in
> Australia. The paper ballots are just made as big as they need to be
> for every candidate listed with a box next to their name.
>
> If voters are restricted in the number of candidates they can strictly
> rank then some of Hare's good properties, such as compliance with
> Clone Independence and Mutual Majority are stuffed up. And allowing
> equal-ranking in Hare makes it, depending on how the equal rankings
> are handled, more awkward and/or somewhat more vulnerable to
> Push-over strategy. I have never heard anyone in Australia complain
> about not being able to equal-rank above bottom.
>
> If we must have limited ranking levels and allow equal ranking, then
> some Condorcet methods suffer far less. My favourite is still
> Margins Sorted Approval (explicit).
>
> Chris
>
> On 4/05/2025 5:41 am, robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods wrote:
>> I've never understood, in a free society, the compulsory voting
>> requirement. I also don't understand that for our city councilors,
>> unless they recuse themselves.
>>
>> One *should* be allowed to be neutral or even ignorant of the
>> alternatives in a choice and abstain to vote. It's our right to not
>> take a position on an issue just as much as it's our right to take
>> any position on the same issue.
>>
>> Voters should be allowed to rank as many (as space permits, there
>> might be a limit of 5 or 6 levels of ranking) or as few candidates as
>> they want. And voters should be able to equally rank as many
>> candidates as they want. Of course, all unranked candidates are tied
>> for last place on that voter's ballot.
>>
>> And our votes must count equally. Hence Condorcet for single-winner
>> RCV elections .
>>
>> /Powered by Cricket Wireless/
>>
>> ------ Original message------
>> *From: *Chris Benham via Election-Methods
>> *Date: *Sat, May 3, 2025 10:25
>> *To: *Etjon Basha;
>> *Cc: *EM;Kevin Venzke;Forest Simmons;
>> *Subject:*Re: [EM] Election day in Australia
>>
>> 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 ---- Election-Methods mailing list
>>>> - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
>>> ----
>>> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
>>> for list info
>>>
>>
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