an outline of the australian preferential voting system

• Also known as the “lower house”,

consisting of local MPs

• There are currently 150 electorates (or

divisions, or seats), thus each represents

approximately 150,000 people

• The lower house predominantly consists

of members of the two major parties

To explain how voting works, let’s assume

that:

in your local electorate, there are four

candidates: Labor, Liberal, The Greens, and

Family First

your ideological preferences are The Greens,

then Family First, then Liberal, then Labor

there are 120,000 valid votes in your

electorate

Labor 4

Family First 2

Liberal 3

Green 1

After the polls close, all 120,000 valid

ballots are collected

all first preferences (ie all the number

1s) are tallied

if any candidate receives 60,001 or

more first preferences, they become

your local MP and no further counting

is required

But more likely, the first preference votes

would look something like this:

Labor 54,000

Liberal 52,000

Green 8,000

Family First 6,000

Nobody has enough votes to win outright

The party with the least number of 1st

preference votes – in this case Family First – is

eliminated

Now the ballots of the 6,000 people who

voted Family First number 1 are re-

examined, and their 2nd preferences are

tallied

It turns out that when you tally the number

2s of those 6,000, you see this:

Labor 1,000

Liberal 4,000

Green 1,000

These are then added to the 1st preference votes of the

other 114,000 votes, and the tally now looks like this:

Labor 54,000 + 1,000 = 55,000

Liberal 52,000 + 4,000 = 56,000

The Greens 8,000 + 1,000 = 9,000

Still nobody has the 60,001 votes required to win the

seat, so counting continues

The party with the least number of votes at this point –

The Greens – is now eliminated

So now they go back again to the ballots which made up the Greens’ 9,000 votes, which are those which looked like either of these:

Labor

Family First 1

Liberal

Green 2

Labor

Family First

Liberal

Green 1

Now they count up the next preference of

those voters, and find:

Labor 6,000

Liberal 3,000

Adding this to the previous votes:

Labor 55,000 + 6,000 = 61,000

Liberal 56,000 + 3,000 = 59,000

Labor now has more than the 60,001 votes

required to win the seat

Or “upper house”

Each state has 12 senators (2 for each

territory), elected in accordance with

the percentage of the vote which they

attract in their state/territory

There are 76 senators in total, so there is

a senator for approximately every

300,000 people (on average)

Senate ballot papers generally have a lot more boxes on them

than House of Representatives ballots, for two reasons:

1. Each party has multiple candidates, and

2. Minor parties have a much better chance of winning a Senate

seat, so this is where all the minor parties put up candidates

So if you’re electing 6 senators (except for a double dissolution,

only half the senators are put to a vote each election), the

major parties may put up 5 candidates each, and the minor

parties 2 candidates each, for a total of 14 candidates

In reality, there can be, and often are, dozens of candidates

The standard way of voting for the senate is to number

all 14 boxes from 1 to 14, in order of preference (“below

the line”)

Because there can be so many senate candidates, and

numbering all of them can be time-consuming, the

option of voting “above the line” was introduced

What this means is that if, as in your example, you like

The Greens, and are happy for The Greens to direct how

your preferences will be distributed, then you can simply

put a number 1 next to The Greens “above the line”

Obviously, if you’re considering voting

“above the line”, it’s important that

you know how your preferences will

be distributed, and that your “number

1” vote doesn’t divert your

preferences to candidates who you

find objectionable.

Labor Liberal Greens 1 Family First

Labor candidate 1 Liberal candidate 1 Greens candidate 1 Family First candidate 1

Labor candidate 2 Liberal candidate 2 Greens candidate 2 Family First candidate 2

Labor candidate 3 Liberal candidate 3





This is an “above the line” vote for The Greens. Your

preferences will be distributed in accordance with instructions

from The Greens to the Australian Electoral Commission.

The Greens may have specified that their preferences go first to Labor, then

to the Liberals, then to Family First, in which case your “above the line”

ballot really ends up being counted as though it were completed like this:

Labor Liberal Greens Family First

Labor candidate 1 3 Liberal candidate 1 10 Greens candidate 1 1 Family First candidate 1 17


Labor candidate 3 5 Liberal candidate 3 12





Labor Liberal Greens Family First








If you want your preferences distributed differently, and in

accordance with your stated ideological preferences, then you

need to complete every box below the line:

This one’s quite a bit more complicated, but

very interesting. Hold on!

There is a certain number of votes which

have to be attained in order to gain a Senate

seat. It varies by state, but for these purposes,

let’s say that it’s 300,000 votes.

So firstly, all the number 1s - below the line –

are counted on all the senate ballots.

The first preferences are counted, and

the tally looks like this:

Liberal Candidate 1 1,650,000

Labor Candidate 1 1,350,000

Greens Candidate 1 230,000

Family First Candidate 1 70,000

Both the Liberal and Labor first

candidates have enough votes to win

a senate seat and are elected

These two candidates have far in excess of the

300,000 votes required to win a seat, so each

vote is apportioned, or split into fractions of a

vote.

So if you had voted 1 for Liberal Candidate 1,

300,000/1,650,000 = 18.2% of your vote is

counted towards that candidate.

The remaining 81.8% of your vote now goes to

the candidate you put as number 2.

If everybody who had Liberal 1 as 1st preference, had Liberal 2

as 2nd preference, then Liberal 2 would get 81.8% x 1,650,000 =

1,350,000 votes. They also have easily enough for their seat, so

they actually only need 300,000/1,350,000 = 22.2% of your vote

to win their senate seat.

So after two distributions, if you voted Liberal 1 then Liberal 2,

Liberal 1 has been elected and has had 18.2% of your vote

Liberal 2 has been elected and has had 22.2% of your vote, and

you still have 59.6% of your vote to count towards your lower-

preferenced candidates

Your vote continues to be distributed in this manner

until none of the remaining candidates reaches the

300,000 threshold

Then, the candidate with the fewest votes is

eliminated, and their preferences distributed, and so

on, until all senate seats are filled

Your vote will almost always end up split amongst a

number of candidates, in accordance with how

many other people voted similarly, and your

preferences

It isn’t really possible to “waste” your vote,

provided you make a valid vote. So vote in

the order that’s consistent with your

preferences, even if it’s for a minor party.

Don’t vote “above the line” for the Senate

unless you’re comfortable with the way that

your number 1 party will distribute your

preferences!

Tracey Bryan

[email protected]

20th August 2010

an outline of the australian preferential voting system

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