If the recent polls are anything to go by, we are headed for a minority government at the upcoming federal election. So more than ever, Australians need to give serious consideration not only to their first preference vote, but also to their second and subsequent votes on the ballot sheet. Such is the system of preferential voting we have in Australia.
How preferential voting began
It hasn’t always been this way. Prior to 1918, we had the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) where a candidate just needed the most votes to win. Then the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 replaced FPTP with preferential voting.
This came about because a new party, the Country Party (the National Party predecessor) arrived on the scene, and split the non-Labor Party vote in country areas. So preferential voting was introduced to remove the distortions of vote splitting, and secure the survival of Labor-opposing parties.
Over time, preferential voting ensured fairer representation, with the system requiring majority support for a candidate to win after the distribution of preferences. It favoured broad support for election, and was deemed a fairer system.
The preferential voting system is such that, the least supported first preference candidate is eliminated from counting, with their next preference votes transferred to the remaining candidates. That process continues until a candidate has more than 50% of the votes and is declared the winner.
How it evolved
For many elections after the 1918 Act, preference votes didn’t come into play for the majority of electorates. Even nearly sixty years later in the 1975 election for example, just 24 of the 127 federal seats were decided by distributing preferences. The remainder winning on first preference votes. The combined two-major party vote was 84.6%.
So for most seats in 1975, it was still basically a two-party contest, with a smattering of minor parties and independents votes.
Fast forward to the 2022 election, and a whopping 136 of 151 seats were decided by preference votes, with a combined two-party vote of just 68.3%.
The increased significance of preference voting reflects a shifting electoral profile, with a decline in the two-party system, and a rise in minor parties and independents. In 2022, almost a third of the primary vote went to the latter, with the Labor Party securing just 32.6% of the primary vote before going on to form government after preferences.
Strategic preference deals
We now have a political setting that is more fragmented and competitive, with the minor party and independent vote really gaining traction. This in turn means a heavy reliance on the distribution of preferences. It also means that strategic voting and preference deals have become prominent. One such preference-gaming strategy involves the following.
One of the two major parties has an unpopular policy with locals, like say offshore wind farms. An independent candidate opposing the wind farms is otherwise aligned to the major party’s policies. Angry voters who would normally vote for that major party instead give their vote to the independent. The independent’s how-to-vote card directs preferences back to the major party, and it is elected anyway.
What began as a protest vote, ultimately had no effect. And no-one would be any wiser as to whether the independent ran with the major party’s blessings or not.
Preference harvesting is another strategy. This is more prevalent in upper house elections, with group voting tickets ‘above the line’. Minor parties collude, exchanging preferences with each other, getting over the top of more popular candidates. This has on occasions, resulted in the election of candidates with a tiny share of first preference votes.
An obvious question today is, have the distortionary effects of preferential voting gone too far? Has our parliament become so fragmented that genuine reform is too difficult to implement? Will majority governments eventually become a thing of the past? Where will it end?
Optional preferential voting may reduce the impact to some extent. Currently used in NSW state elections, it is a system where voters have the choice of not ranking all candidates, and in fact may only give a primary vote if they want. It could be considered a hybrid of FPTP and compulsory preference voting, and where it sits on that spectrum depends on the rate at which preferences are not given. Under this system, a candidate can win with less than a majority of total votes cast.
An optional preference arrangement weakens the influence of minor parties and independents. The more primary votes they receive without trailing preferences, the less impact they can have on major party tallies and the shape of the parliament, lessening the need for major parties to deal with them.
And optional preferencing dampens the effect of preference gaming strategies, because fewer preference votes are on the table, and many voters who intend not to preference all candidates, will not bother with how-to-vote cards.
Make your vote count
In the end, the voter needs to be vigilant if they want to avoid the pitfalls of preference gaming. This can be achieved by researching all candidates.
If considering an independent or minority outfits, check if they have any past affiliations with major parties. How many big issues are they campaigning on? Have they received large donations or campaign funding from sources invested in certain policy areas? In other words, follow the money.
And don’t necessarily strictly follow how-to-vote cards. At least check if there are any unusual preference arrangements. Maybe also check cards in neighbouring electorates for preferencing patterns between parties and independents. Alternatively, if the voter has scrutinised candidates, how-to-vote cards may be dispensed with altogether.
Finally. In upper house elections, always vote ‘below the line’ to prevent group ticket preference flows.
On election day, we celebrate our democratic right to have a say in who governs the country. Let’s make our votes count.
Tony Dillon is a freelance writer and former actuary.