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."
Not only by accident... (Score:3, Informative)
...there's a bit of trick, too:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/08/22/revealed-the-libertarian-rights-micro-party-links/
Re:Not only by accident... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, only the major parties should be allowed to manipulate preferences - like Liberal directing all preferences away from the Greens to try and unseat them in Melbourne.
Re:Not only by accident... (Score:5, Insightful)
They used the system as it was designed to be used. The major's are just pissed because they intended that it only be them that got to play that game. If you want electoral reform, you need to be elected under the corrupt system before you can vote to change it. Refusing to participate accomplishes nothing.
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.
Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the article says "Mr Leyonhjelm accepts his party probably gained votes in error, with voters thinking they were choosing the Liberals."
When the people make a massive mistake in democracy, it's still their decision to make. Look at the american elections for the last 20 years. Both sides will say the people made mistakes.
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
regularly changing power from one party to another with virtually no violence is unusual in the history of human civilizations.
That's because the same party (i.e. group of people) stays in power, what changes is the figurehead they give orders to.
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Informative)
That's because the power never really changes. It stays in the hands of the businesses and their lobbyists. They pay any side that looks like it has a chance of winning. They don't care who the figure head is.
It also helps that there's multiple precedents of the new guys forgiving and hiding any wrongdoings the other guys did.
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You're forgetting the special 'social' interests that make up the bulk of the left wing lobby field. They promote systemically driven privilege as 'equality' to justify more government in our lives, picking the winners and losers in ever growing numbers of situations...and the taxpayer pay the bill! These people are as guilty as your neocon fuckwits for the destruction of liberty in this country.
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That's because the power never really changes. It stays in the hands of the businesses and their lobbyists.
So where do the real powers like the various US intelligence agencies fit into your scheme?
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, the article says "Mr Leyonhjelm accepts his party probably gained votes in error, with voters thinking they were choosing the Liberals." ... but what else is he supposed to say?
I think the mistake was that the voter simply didn't care. I highly doubt, as dumb as Liberal voters are that they would accidentally vote Liberal Democrat as opposed to Liberal.
What happened is that apathetic voters simply put 1 into the first box on the page and dumped the paper into the Ballot box. They really didn't care who was in the box, they just voted to avoid being fined (yes, in Australia if you dont vote you get a fine). I'm just glad one of the obviously racist parties (One Nation, Stable Population) wasn't in pole position.
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The simplest solution would be to randomize the order on each ballot paper.
Alternatively just make the first entry "none of the below" and if it wins have a re-run where none of the first round candidates are allowed to participate again.
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Informative)
People didn't want an Abbott government, that was made quite clear by the ~4% swing against Labor translating to only a 1.5% swing to the Libs (in first preference votes).
Yep,
As much as the Murdoch and Reinheart papers would like to pretend, Abbott got in by a narrow margin and if minor parties end up ruling a hostile senate he's already promised a Double Dissolution (wikipedia link [wikipedia.org]) which typically does not bode well for the government that calls it.
But if the Liberals truly wanted a landslide win, they should have put Turnbull in charge. Tony Abbott is too extreme on the right and Australians typically prefer centrists (this was what Gillard and Rudd had going for them) which Turnbull is. Turnbull is also a populist. Turnbull vs anyone in Labour would have resulted in a massive swing to the Libs. Unfortunately, unlike Abbott, Turnbull wont be a puppet for Liberal powerbrokers.
We've elected the faceless men. All we can hope for is a hostile senate.
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
I found the truly scary part is that the Australian Labor Party still got a reasonable amount of the vote. I wonder just how incompetent a party must become in order to be abandoned.
I suspect it is because the Labor government was not as incompetent as some people say. Sure debt is higher than is it was when Labor took power, but they came in just as the GFC was kicking in so they had to start with a big spending initiative to keep the economy going (which worked very well). They also have a policy of building infrastructure (like the NBN) rather than selling it all off (eg privatisation of Telstra).
Where they were incompetent was in allowing an internal power struggle to play out in public. So much attention was paid to the Rudd-Gillard tug of war that even if they ran a perfect government nobody would remember it.
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I found the truly scary part is that the Australian Labor Party still got a reasonable amount of the vote. I wonder just how incompetent a party must become in order to be abandoned.
I suspect it is because the Labor government was not as incompetent as some people say. Sure debt is higher than is it was when Labor took power, but they came in just as the GFC was kicking in so they had to start with a big spending initiative to keep the economy going (which worked very well). They also have a policy of building infrastructure (like the NBN) rather than selling it all off (eg privatisation of Telstra).
This, any Australian who thinks there is a difference between the economic policies of the parties is deluded. We've followed the same basic strategy since Keating (Early 90's for the non-Aussies playing along at home).
The difference between the parties is in their social policies and even then, there isn't a huge divide. Both seem very well rooted in middle class welfare.
Where they were incompetent was in allowing an internal power struggle to play out in public. So much attention was paid to the Rudd-Gillard tug of war that even if they ran a perfect government nobody would remember it.
This, The Labor govt actually did quite a bit for schools and hospitals, but unfortunately this is what will be remembered.
Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the people make a massive mistake in democracy, it's still their decision to make. Look at the american elections for the last 20 years. Both sides will say the people made mistakes.
The American system is different in that voting is voluntary and not quite as complicated. Also there's not a whole host of parties with similar sounding names. If you wanted to vote properly in Australia on the weekend you had to number 110 boxes on a ballot paper about 1 metre wide. I WISH I WAS JOKING!
It took me literally 20min to fill out my ballot paper. I can understand why the vast majority of New South Welshmen would have opened the piece of paper, shouted out "CRIKEY!" then put the number one into the first box with "Liberal" in the title and walked away. Unfortunately the first box with Liberal written in it wasn't the Liberal party.
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Where are you getting your news?
The ones where people have actually been convicted of said misleading and fraudulent calls. Until that happens via court, or via elections canada--my statement is factually correct. Unlike some people who love to bash, and be partisan hacks. I'm more than happy to wait for the wheels of justice to work it's course.
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Be a long wait as the Conservatives have defunded Elections Canada quite a bit to make sure the wheels of justice don't turn.
Good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good news (Score:5, Informative)
1) Australia practices compulsory voting. If you are eligible to vote and fail to do so, you are fined. From eyeballing the turnout numbers of the 2008 and 2010 elections in the U.S., my impression is that the people didn't really "decide" the Democrats were better in 2008, and the Republicans better in 2010. What happened was the Republican voters were dejected and didn't bother to vote in 2008, and Democrat voters were dejected and didn't bother to vote in 2010.
2) Australia uses preferential voting. You rank the candidates in the order you like them. That means you don't get situations where two candidates with similar political ideologies split the vote, resulting in a minor candidate with the opposite ideology winning because votes for that ideology weren't split. Most Australians just use the simplified version (rank their choice #1, leave the rest blank) which has the same result as the plurality voting system used in the U.S. (greatest vote recipient wins). But having the option to rank the candidates means the system is protected from splitting the vote.
Another voting option used in some parliamentary elections (not sure about Australia) is to vote for a party, not for individuals. This means if there are 100 members in parliament and the Green party gets 1% of the vote nationwide, they get 1 member in parliament. This system is incompatible with the representative system used in the U.S. (the idea being that if a Congressman or Senator represents a district or state, s/he will be more responsive to the wishes of the his/her electorate). In a representative system, the 1% Green party vote gets spread out over all the representative areas, and no Green party member ever gets voted to office.
The combination of the representative system with plurality voting in the U.S. virtually guarantees there will only be two political parties - if there are three parties, the two whose ideologies are closest improve their odds of winning elections by merging into one party. Good luck explaining all this to regular people though. I've been trying to explain the benefits of a preferential voting system ("instant run-off") since the 1990s. Most people don't understand or don't care.
Bad News! (Score:3)
In our experience when there's minor parties on the table there are a lot of backroom deals done with minor parties to get them to vote on the governing party policies. That's exactly how we ended up a carbon tax despite voting for a party that guaranteed no carbon tax would be offered. It's how the seat of Lyne (a tiny part of the New South Wales mid-north coast) ended up with a new hospital, legislation making it easier for regional kids (like those in the seat of Lyne) to receive youth allowance, and in
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Re:Good news (Score:4, Informative)
As someone who worked at the elections (Score:5, Informative)
Once the count was on and I started to see a few more votes in that pile for the liberal democrats, I knew it was going to take a sizable proportion off the mainstream party in error. Having a look at statistics though, where I was working and surrounding regions had informal vote rates of 12% to 15% (much higher than the national average). It's also a labor party stronghold, which is the party who just got knocked out.
It's also worth pointing out that the particular ballot paper was enormous, over 1m long, 110 candidates for 6 positions, 35 parties and can be very confusing to explain to people who barely speak english, on how to make their vote formal, let alone read the 6.5 point print on who they're voting for.
Moral of the story is, you can't help stupid people, but you can let them to vote... (NB: Australia has compulsory attendance to vote and compulsory preferential voting in federal elections)
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Moral of the story is, you can't help stupid people, but you can *force them to vote....
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Moral of the story is, you can't help stupid people, but you can *force them to vote
In Australia you can be fined if your name is not marked off as having voted, however you don't have to put anything on the ballot papers if you don't want to or even just scribble on it. We call that the donkey vote and it is perfectly legal. Of course doing something like that is a wasted vote.
Re:As someone who worked at the elections (Score:5, Insightful)
Moral of the story is randomly choosing the order of the names on the ballot a single time then using that order on all the ballots doesn't actually accomplish anything.
It's like making a random number generator with a single fair dice roll.
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Moral of the story is, you can't help stupid people, but you can let them to vote... (NB: Australia has compulsory attendance to vote and compulsory preferential voting in federal elections)
Errr... ummm... you sure that the subtle whiff of superiority emanating from your post was really what you mean?
Is voting for liberal democrats an act of stupidity?
Or... is making a(n individual) mistake a symptom of stupidity... only because many others made the same mistake?
Ah, maybe "barely speaking english" would be a sign of stupidity, is that it?
You know, rather than having me inferring reasons for your attempt of "moral of the story", why wouldn't you ellaborate on what you mean by it, mate?
Re:As someone who worked at the elections (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I can't speak for the original poster, but in my book anyone who can't even figure out the name of which candidate they intend to vote for doesn't deserve to have their vote counted.
This is the main reason why I support removing party affiliation from all ballots. If someone can't be bothered to learn the name of the person that they're voting for, then they shouldn't be voting. Increasing voter turnout is only a worthwhile goal if the voters actually have some idea of what they're doing.
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If someone can't be bothered to learn the name of the person that they're voting for, then they shouldn't be voting.
I would tend to agree... but not entirely... not knowing the name of the person for which one is voting can have a larger number of causes than only "can't be bothered".
Increasing voter turnout is only a worthwhile goal if the voters actually have some idea of what they're doing.
Eh, no. I prefer to have a compulsory voting for the same reason I prefer a society with compulsory elementary schooling... compulsory voting requires a participation in civic matters.
Even if some/many will still end "illiterate" or "lacking basic numeracy skills", there are chances that some (hopefully many) would actually get "some idea of
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Most people just couldn't care less. They don't inform themselves, they don't attempt to read things through properly, and after having a few people argue with me about voting, when I'm explaining to them what they have to do to vote formally, because if they did what they wanted to do, then their vote wouldn't count. I'm quite disenchanted with my electorate.
Yes calling them stupid is over the top, particularly for people who don't speak english well.
As for the liberal democrats, I enjoy shooting, so a par
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A vote for a party with an excellent and well developed platform, likely to achieve office and be held accountable and so deliver elements of its platform, without a considered opinion on the futility of politics, is stupidity.
Hmmm... I cannot but like the way you think... even if it's somehow wrong (rationale: not considering the limits - futility, in extrem - of politics cannot be interpreted as a proof of stupidity... even if it may be a sign of it).
Re:As someone who worked at the elections (Score:5, Interesting)
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Appalling (Score:2, Insightful)
Any system that lets someone be elected by accident is absolutely appalling. Australia would do well to reevaluate their system so that this doesn't happen in the future.
Politics and national leadership is far too important to be decided by absurd errors.
Re:Appalling (Score:5, Insightful)
Any system that lets someone be elected by accident is absolutely appalling. Australia would do well to reevaluate their system so that this doesn't happen in the future.
Politics and national leadership is far too important to be decided by absurd errors.
You know that any system where you ask common people to decide things will allow for stuff to happen by accident, right?
Re:Appalling (Score:5, Insightful)
Any system that lets someone be elected by accident is absolutely appalling.
Yet it was done in the US in 2000 and 2004. "accidental" votes (hanging chads, pregnant chads, etc.) got counted or discarded, affecting the election.
Re:Appalling (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but no. There was a question about the 2000 election, but Bush still won when the media conducted their own recounts*. What "controversy" are you referring to in 2004? Or are you just disagreeing with the outcome, again?
Newspapers' recount shows Bush prevailed [usatoday.com]
* It's worth pointing out that the hotspot for that controversy about the "chads" took place in a county controlled by Democrats.
Re:Appalling (Score:5, Informative)
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You need to look up Arrow's impossibility theorem [wikipedia.org]: the problem is unavoidable.
Liberal Party is a confusing coalition already (Score:2)
I honestly thought the Liberal Democratic Party was part of the "Liberal Party", since what is referred to as the Liberal Party is actually a coalition of 4 (I think) different parties with names of a similar structure.
And they sure as heck aren't liberal in policy, either. In fact they are the more conservative of the two main parties.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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The Australian Liberals are closer to the US Republicans.
Unless I'm mistaken, the Republicans haven't been campaigning on a platform of drug legalisation and gay marriage of late...
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So, like everything else lately, deceptive obfuscated nomenclature to befuddle the democratic process of the morons.
Re:Primer on OZ Politics for Americans (Score:5, Funny)
As a hardcore Libertarian I'm glad this happened. (Score:3)
Reason #1 - Even though it's the opposite side of the globe from me it spreads the ideology and that makes me happy.
Reason #2 - This most likely happened due to Australia mandatory voting policy - which as a Libertarian mandatory anything annoys me - so it sort of proves our point.
Senate missing from TV coverage (Score:3)
As it was my first time in Australia for an election, I watched on TV. The coverage was completely about the lower house. By the time I quit watching (Rudd's concession speech) I don't think there had been so much as a mention of the fact that senators were being elected also. It was weird and puzzling.
Re:Senate missing from TV coverage (Score:5, Informative)
There's three reasons for that:
- The lower house determines who the PM is, which is the thing everyone really wants to know
- We only elect half the Senate at a time, so there's less of a shift than there is in the lower house where everything's up for grabs
- The new Senators don't take their seats for almost a year
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Compulsory voting in AU (Score:2)
It's my understanding that voting is compulsory in AU. When you vote, must you mark your ballot?
Given that not everyone is interested in voting, would it not make sense to simply mark the ballot the easiest way possible (i.e., from the top)?
Re:Compulsory voting in AU (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have to mark your ballot, and even if you did, that would require them to check your ballots before you dropped it in the box, which they don't do.
You can drop in a blank ballot, draw a penis on it, or whatever you like; if it doesn't follow the rules it's called "informal" and not counted.
What you're describing is still quite common - it's called the donkey vote (numbering the ballot from the top), is a valid vote, and actually gives the top candidates a slight edge.
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The more I think of it, these people are actually rather smart. In a bad situation forced upon them they try to get it over as quickly and safely as possible and move on with their lives. Scanning the ballot beyond the first tick box would be a clear waste
Draw what? (Score:3)
draw a penis on it
That just may count as a vote for the biggest dick on the list. At least it would explain a lot about the outcome of these elections.
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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:Compulsory voting in AU (Score:5, Informative)
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.
As a vote counter I can assure you that during the long and tedious process of counting votes, the pictures of penises and swear words give us a chuckle and lift our spirits.
alrighty then (Score:5, Insightful)
A full list of the 'whackos' of 2013 (Score:3)
Two of them bought their seats
One is a rev head
One is a religious nutter
One is a gun nutter
One is a sports nutter
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/senate-balance-of-power---who27s-who/4945390 [abc.net.au]
Provisionally Elected... (Score:3)
Karma (Score:3)
Complete lies (Score:3, Informative)
Mandatory Voting (Score:3)
From what I have heard, everyone in Australia must vote. Which I imagine is the biggest culprit here; A significant portion of people are voting who cannot even tell two parties with liberal in their name apart. Also, we should not discount the group who just picks a random party on the ballot box, which likely have a large percentage which picks the first one.
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Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
New slashdot poll.
How many hours did you spent researching candidates?
1. 0. I don't vote.
2. 0. I just vote along party lines.
3...5 The rest of the options are probably statistically insignificant anyway so I won't even put them.
Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Que? It took me about ten minutes to classify all of the minor parties on a rough political spectrum, and about two to sort them on senate.io. Then less than five minutes to number all the boxes on Saturday.
Of course, below-the-liners don't even get counted unless there are enough to match the above-the-line minor voters.
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.
Better to eliminate the above the line vote, but allow people to preference for as many below-the-line candidates as they wish. Once they stop (which can be just a [1] for the preferred party-leader) the remainder of their distributed preferences would then flow according to the registered-preferences of their [1] choice. (So that no one is disenfranchised by limiting their vote, only if they deliberately spoil their ballot.)
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I don't understand why we don't adopt the same principal that we use for the lower house, where you have the option of numbering all the parties above the line, rather than just voting "1" and relying on their preferences.
That way they would have to hand out senate 'how-to-vote' cards and the layman could override the preferences.
If people had to only number the senate parties from 1 to 15, rather than the individual senators (1 - 82 in QLD this cycle), I'm sure you would find the population that direct the
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That is exactly the system.
When a voter selects a vote above the line, they are choosing for their numbering of all the candidates to be as the party has outlined to the electoral office. It is a short-cut - a useful one, because there is often over 100 candidates for the senate.
You can choose not to use the shortcut, and number alllllll the boxes below the line. You might just get finished before the count is done.
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Robbak:
What I'm saying, is instead of being able to just put a "1" above the line, is people should be able to number the parties above the line 1 to 15 (or whatever) and thus direct their preferences, but not have to vote all 82+ senators below the line.
So you're directing your preferences [across] the senate paper, but not [down].
Almost everybody who votes below the line (except in Canberra where voters know the actual senators) vote in sequential order down each column anyway.
In effect, I'm saying we sho
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In this election, I suspect enough *did* vote below the line to warrant their being counted.
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, Insightful)
It took me about ten minutes to classify all of the minor parties on a rough political spectrum
Check out the policies of the Australian Independents Party. [australian...nts.org.au] How would you classify them on a rough political spectrum?
Now go to belowtheline.org.au [belowtheline.org.au] and see which parties they preference (AEC has now disabled their "below the line preferences" data [aec.gov.au]?!) Does this affect how you would classify them on a rough political spectrum?
Now try to search news stories to understand how those preferences came to be. Now how would you classify them?
Repeat 45 times.
Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I am totally for optional preferences above the line, but I think it's dubious to think of the primary vote as somehow indicative of a party's validity. We have a preferential system for a reason, and that's because first-past-the-post is unrepresentative - it forces the vote into a two-party system.
We need to get people allocating their preferences themselves, not suggesting that preferences are somehow less valid that the primary vote.
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?
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Re-checked:
Xenophon got >25% of the primary vote. Family First got 4.03%. Both look set to get equal representation.
Preferential voting is a step in the right directi (Score:3)
However, with range voting [rangevoting.org], you don't *order* the candidate
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:Austrailians as stupid as Americans? (Score:4, Insightful)
I actually think the time has come for the idea of true democracy - where everyone gets to vote in parliament on every thing
If the majority of people won't spend 15 minutes sorting out who they want to represent them once every few years, what on earth would be the advantage of giving them a direct vote on every issue?
They'd be voting based on TV soundbites they weren't able to avoid while skipping around the DVR, and the name of the Bill.
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Vulnerable to deliberately misleading bill titles.
Re:AusSians as stupid as Americans? (Score:3)
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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...
I know you said it, but that is exactly what the Senator Online party does.
http://www.senatoronline.org.au/ [senatoronline.org.au]
I wonder if we could lobby one of the two new 'accidental' senators to adopt this strategy for all bills for which they have no policy or direction from their party (motoring enthusiast party of Victoria and Sports Party of WA - I'm looking at you).
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There's nothing depressing about it. The preferential system is designed to not only elect the most popular, but also to elect the least unpopular. If the preference allocation makes the motoring party the least offensive to the largest possible group of people, then so be it, a good choice for especially the senate watchdog role.
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What about "a couple of hours because I set up a head to head bracket and flip coins until there's a single winner".
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New slashdot poll. How many hours did you spent researching candidates? 1. 0. I don't vote. 2. 0. I just vote along party lines. 3...5 The rest of the options are probably statistically insignificant anyway so I won't even put them.
Fuck statistics.
I spent about 4 hours looking over their platforms and fidlling on belowtheline.org.au. Took me 4 minutes in the booth to transcribe all the preferences on the senate ballot, making sure it's not an informal vote.
At 2010 election, I even rated all Labor senators high (but not the highest), except for Conroy with his push for Internet filters, he went straight on the last place.
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not entirely. the flow on of preferences is fiendishly complicated, even if you only vote above the line.
the below-the-line votes haven't even been counted yet. in my state there were 97 boxes that you had to put a number in. one number wrong and the vote doesn't count.
add to that the fact that most people still don't know how preferential voting works.
tl;dr: i drew a 4 foot long dick on my senate ballot, after meticulously numbering 97 candidates in ascending order of my hatred of the candidate.
non-aus
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Just want to point out here that "Libertarian" is not at all the same as "Liberal." In fact, it's pretty much the exact opposite: conservative on both economic and social axes.
No, that would, rather by definition, be conservative.
Though it's even more confusing when you realise that 'liberals' are now conservatives trying to maintain all the 'progressive' nonsense they've pushed on the West in the last century, while 'conservatives' are trying to eliminate it.
So we live in a world where 'liberals' are conservatives, 'conservatives' are radicals and 'libertarians' are... something else entirely, I guess.
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To be honest, Wikileaks shot themselves in the foot with the NSW preferences scandal and ensuing fall-out.
For those who don't know, one of the state branches of the Wikileaks defied the party leadership, and lodged their ballot paper in NSW giving preferences to the conservative parties instead of to the progressive parties the leadership had decided on. A significant number of highly ranked members left the party because of it.
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