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<p>An interesting video on a channel I recently came across:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFD5npXRYi8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFD5npXRYi8</a><br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Here's Why Australian Elections Can't Be
Rigged | AUSPOL EXPLAINED<br>
Auspol Explained<br>
28.3K subscribers<br>
<br>
63,337 views May 12, 2025 #40 on Trending<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Learn more about elections and voting in Australia at:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://aec.gov.au/">https://aec.gov.au/</a> <br>
<br>
You can get a copy of the script with citations here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wKgiSj9llxqeID746WS532mhOZR65gp1/view?pli=1">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wKgiSj9llxqeID746WS532mhOZR65gp1/view?pli=1</a></blockquote>
<br>
I watched all of it and thought it was fine.<br>
<br>
Not discussed in this video but it also helps a lot that the Hare
method used is Clone Independent. <br>
<br>
Chris Benham<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/05/2025 2:22 am, Chris Benham via
Election-Methods wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:c35e18d1-5a8c-476f-87b5-f75b9c02a930@yahoo.com.au">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<p>In practice in Australia there is nothing stopping anyone from
voting "informally" by say just submitting a blank ballot.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
Chris<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/05/2025 5:41 am, robert
bristow-johnson via Election-Methods wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:l5qsdp7pc2viinssl5gudohm.1746302557418@email.lge.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type"
content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div style="font-size: 10pt;">
<div dir="auto">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.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">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.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">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.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">And our votes must count equally. Hence
Condorcet for single-winner RCV elections .</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="auto" font-size:9pt;"=""><i>Powered by Cricket
Wireless</i></div>
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<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">------ Original message------</div>
<div dir="auto"><b>From: </b>Chris Benham via
Election-Methods<election-methods@lists.electorama.com></election-methods@lists.electorama.com></div>
<div dir="auto"><b>Date: </b>Sat, May 3, 2025 10:25</div>
<div dir="auto"><b>To: </b>Etjon Basha;</div>
<div dir="auto"><b>Cc: </b>EM;Kevin Venzke;Forest Simmons;</div>
<div dir="auto"><b>Subject:</b>Re: [EM] Election day in
Australia</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
</div>
<div dir="auto">
<p>Etjon,<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
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.)<br>
<br>
What I consulted to help decide how I would vote:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/05/2025 11:09 pm, Etjon
Basha wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CA+EJN6TnBGu1xDU8_wPkR-bv6VjKoYSTV8oDY7YMLOUvkhdtZQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">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?</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, 3 May 2025,
11:33 pm Chris Benham via Election-Methods, <<a
href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com"
="" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"><a
href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</a
></div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p><br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
</p>
<p>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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
<a
href="https: www.abc.net.au="" news=""
elections="" federal-election-2025"
=""
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true"
=""
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"><a
href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025</a><br>
<br>
<a
href="https: www.abc.net.au="" news=""
2025-05-03=""
peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership="" 105247916"
=""
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true"
=""
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"><a
href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916</a><br>
</a
href="https:></a
href="https:></p>
<blockquote type="cite"> <h2
style="font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5;margin-bottom:0.5rem;font-weight:700;color:rgb(16,49,106);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe
ui",roboto,"helvetica=""
neue",arial,sans-serif;box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:0px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(236,242,251);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"="">In
short: <p
style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0.5rem
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe=""
ui",roboto,"helvetica=""
neue",arial,sans-serif;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(236,242,251);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"="">Peter
Dutton will become the first federal leader of
an opposition to lose his own seat. <p
style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0.5rem
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe=""
ui",roboto,"helvetica=""
neue",arial,sans-serif;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(236,242,251);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"="">Mr
Dutton has conceded he has lost Dickson. <h2
style="font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5;margin-bottom:0.5rem;font-weight:700;color:rgb(16,49,106);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe
ui",roboto,"helvetica=""
neue",arial,sans-serif;box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:1.5rem;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(236,242,251);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"="">What's
next? <p
style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0.5rem
0px=""
0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe=""
ui",roboto,"helvetica=""
neue",arial,sans-serif;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(236,242,251);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"="">The
Liberal Party will have to search for a
new leader. </p
style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0.5rem></h2
style="font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5;margin-bottom:0.5rem;font-weight:700;color:rgb(16,49,106);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe></p
style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0.5rem></p
style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0.5rem></h2
style="font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5;margin-bottom:0.5rem;font-weight:700;color:rgb(16,49,106);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe></blockquote>
<br>
<a
href="https: www.abc.net.au="" news=""
2025-05-03=""
act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025=""
105244060"
="" target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true"
=""
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"><a
href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060</a><br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe
ui",roboto,"helvetica=""
neue",arial,sans-serif;font-size:18px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;display:inline!important;float:none"="">"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.</span
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:abcsans,-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe></blockquote>
<br>
Chris B.<br>
<div><br>
On 3/05/2025 11:38 am, Rob Lanphier via
Election-Methods wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>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:
* <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025"
="" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025</a>
* <a href="https://results.aec.gov.au/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"
="" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://results.aec.gov.au/</a>
* <a
href="https: en.wikipedia.org="" wiki=""
2025_australian_federal_election"
=""
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true"
=""
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"><a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election</a>
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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href="https:></div>
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