Australia Elects Libertarian-Leaning Senator (By Accident) 343
LordLucless writes "Australia's Liberal Democratic Party, which describes itself as a classically liberal, free-market libertarian party, has had their candidate for New South Wales elected to the upper house, with roughly double the number of votes they were expecting. In part, this has been attributed to them being placed first on the ballot paper (which is determined by a random process) and similarities in name to one of the major parties, the Liberal Party of Australia."
Good (Score:-1, Interesting)
Finally something that is done 'in error' is actually something GOOD for a change.
Libertarian, free market guy in any government? I just hope he is in fact a real libertarian.
Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you use senate.io [senate.io]? Really great tool.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of voters will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election. I think perhaps the most egregious outcome is the probable election of a WA Senator who received less the 0.25% of the primary vote!
As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.
Re:Primer on OZ Politics for Americans (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the reason we don't have a republic was that the referendum was Monarchy vs Republic with a Politically-Appointed President, which eliminated anyone who wanted a popularly elected president from the debate.
Re:As someone who worked at the elections (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you use senate.io [senate.io]? Really great tool.
Nope, I used belowtheline.org.au [belowtheline.org.au].
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of voters will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election. I think perhaps the most egregious outcome is the probable election of a WA Senator who received less the 0.25% of the primary vote!
I *almost* considered voting above the line, but none of the parties put their preferences quite the way I liked them. It must be frustrating for the candidates who did well in the primary votes to be pipped at the post by preference deals.
As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.
I actually think the time has come for the idea of true democracy - where everyone gets to vote in parliament on every thing - a large percentage of the population carries a smart phone and would be able to install an app to vote in federal issues. I think that's what the Senator Online party were aiming for. If the time hasn't come already for this style of democracy, it will soon...
Re:Compulsory voting in AU (Score:2, Interesting)
You don't actually have to put anything in the Ballot - if you were so inclined you could simply sign off your name and put the blank ballot papers straight into the box and nothing would be said.
As a side note: People must dislike the Australian Electoral Commission vote counters because it's not like a politician is ever going to see the penises and expletives they marked their ballots with.
Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:4, Interesting)
FYI given the small margins that some of the preferences were decided by, below the line votes could very well make a difference in this election. For example it could change the order of elimination of one or two minor parties which would change the flow of preferences.
Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:4, Interesting)
We have a preferential system for a reason, and that's because first-past-the-post is unrepresentative
Preaching to the choir mate. My position put elsewhere in response to a call for optional preferential (as well as non-compulsary voting):
Now I have philosophical objections to optional preferential voting: With exhaustive preferential voting each elected representative carries with them a majority of formal votes in that seat. Laws passed by a parliament so comprised crystallise the will of the majority of voters (in a majority of seats). And this is a claim the laws of most other democratic countries (ie where voting is not compulsory), cannot make.
However, as a matter of sheer practicality, --in the face of massive ballots (110 candidates for on the NSW Senate ballot), and especially in the Senate election, where preference flows are not always intuitive and where most voters elect to vote above the line, --I think it is pretty clear that optional preferential voting (esp above the line) has become a necessity.
Certainly the practice of political parties devising and registering lists of preferences, which then determine the flow of most votes actually cast, makes a mockery of the idea of preferential voting. I can see no argument for continuing it. Optional preferential voting above the line, my misgivings notwithstanding, would much more accurately reflect the will of voters.
The problem with a senator winging it in on 0.25% of primaries is this. Only a tiny proportion of people allocate their preferences. I was speaking to an electoral worker who told me that of roughly 1,400 ballots they had 50 voted below the line (anecdotal I know, but go to the AEC for the real figures). That means that we will have a senator elected not on the will of the people (or any significant portion thereof), but as a result of ballot orderings made by political parties and preference exchange deals made between parties.
Candidates with far higher primary votes, or running mates thereof will miss out because of the registered preference lists of political parties. Consider the situation in SA where Xenophon received ca. 1.8 quotas in primary votes alone. But the major parties preferenced him or his running mate lowly. The Greens in fact preferenced Xenophon's running mate Stirling Griff below the No Carbon Tax Climate Skeptics party. Now Xenophon and Griff are centrists who are strong advocates for a market based approach to carbon abatement. The real possibility existed that someone voting for The Greens could have their vote electing a Climate "Skeptic" to parliament, hardly what they would want one imagines, because of the sillyness in the Greens preference list. As it happens the spill over from the Greens, ALP, LNP, and indeed the 80% quota from Xenophon looks like it will go to elect a Family First member who received, I think (haven't re-checked) somewhere about 0.4 of a quota on primary vote.
See the problem?
Re:Not only by accident... (Score:4, Interesting)
Half. The system was designed such that you could preference your closest ideological partners so that, if you are defeated, your ideas still have some life. What it (probably instantly) devolved into was pure game theory where you put the party closest to you last as, being so similar, they are your biggest threat. It's prioritising the tribe over the values.
(I would say that ironically this behaviour sometimes does further your values, mostly because everyone is behaving this way.)
Many of those minor parties are also fronts for the major parties. It allows them to capture votes for issues that are highly important to certain groups of people, but which don't comfortably fit into their main policy.