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<p>Robert,<br>
<br>
A good video that I just came across that discusses the history
and philosophy and legality of compulsory voting in Australia:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YJciGycB0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YJciGycB0</a><br>
<br>
I agree that Condorcet is nice, but not that it is necessary for
votes to "count equally". In Hare for example, all voters who
choose to rank all the candidates are guaranteed to participate in
all the voting rounds with the same weight.<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 id="LGEmailHeader" dir="auto">
<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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</blockquote>
</a
href="https:></div>
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moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://electorama.com/em</a>
for list info<br>
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