Although Cuffelinks is an investment forum, many of its followers may be interested in electoral systems, especially after the controversial Senate election results.
Contrary to the great weight of ‘informed’ expert opinion, there is a straightforward argument that the Senate election results did indeed reflect the views of the voting public.
In a normal Senate election, half of each state’s 12 senators are elected, with the whole of the state being regarded as a single electorate. To be elected, a candidate must achieve a quota of votes, which, when there are six seats, is 1/7th of the total formal votes cast + 1. The mathematics works out that effectively there are 6.9999 quotas of votes in each state. After six candidates have been elected, each with 1 quota, there will be insufficient votes remaining to elect any further candidates and the counting concludes.
Particular derision has been directed by psephological elites, major-party apparatchiks and opinion leaders at the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party which gained a Senate seat in Victoria starting from a primary vote of 0.51% of votes cast, or 0.0353 of a quota, and the Australian Sports Party which gained a seat in Western Australia starting from a primary vote of 0.22% of votes cast, or 0.0155 of a quota.
Voting system allows preferences against parties
What such expert opinion ignores is that not only does the Senate voting system (and indeed any preferential system) allow voters to express their preferences for parties, but also it allows them to express their preferences AGAINST particular parties.
In any electorate there is a spectrum of voting motivation. Some voters want to vote for a particular party and don’t care about other parties. Other voters not only want their preferred party to win, but also want to stop other particular parties from winning. An example of this has been seen in recent years where the major parties have put the One Nation party last on their how-to-vote cards. And still other voters’ primary motivation is to stop another particular party or parties from winning a seat, not caring greatly who wins otherwise.
One element that has worked in favour of the major parties in past Senate elections has been the fact that minor party voters (and the minor parties themselves) tended to be undisciplined in their preferences beyond their primary vote. This left frustrated those voters who wanted nothing to do with the major parties (‘A plague/pox on both your houses!’). In this election we’ve seen the minor parties become much more strategic in their preference arrangements.
How did the quotas add up?
Let’s have a look at how the Senate votes were counted in Victoria, enabling the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party to win one of the six seats available. The primary votes fell thus (expressed as quotas, rather than as numbers of votes or percentages of the total vote):
| Party |
Quotas |
|
| Liberal/The Nationals |
2.8204 |
|
| Australian Labor Party |
2.2821 |
|
| The Greens |
0.7474 |
|
| (9 minor parties) |
0.8411 |
) |
| Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party |
0.0353 |
) 1.1500 |
| (21 minor parties) |
0.2736 |
) |
| |
6.9999 |
|
From first preferences the LNP and the ALP were each able to win two seats. At that point the exhaustive process of progressively eliminating at each count that candidate with the lowest number of votes and distributing those votes via preferences to higher-up candidates began.
At that stage the critical point to note was that the number of first preferences cast for minor parties was greater than 1 quota, or 1.1500 to be precise. For these votes to translate into a seat for the minor parties it would be necessary to ensure that as few votes as possible (and definitely no more than 0.1500 quotas) leaked to the major parties. After 28 more counts the quota position was (with four of the six seats already allocated):
| Party |
Quotas |
|
Leakage gain/loss |
| Liberal/The Nationals |
0.8554 |
|
+0.0350 |
| The Greens |
0.7780 |
|
+0.0306 |
| Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party |
0.3965 ) |
) |
|
| Sex Party |
0.3443 ) |
1.0827 ) |
–0.0673 |
| Palmer United Party |
0.3419 ) |
) |
|
| Australian Labor Party |
0.2838 |
|
+0.0017 |
| |
2.9999 |
|
|
It can be seen by comparison with the table of primary votes above that the minor parties were able at this stage to contain preference leakage to less than 7% of a quota, leaving them, or, at least, one of their number, still in the running for the last quota and Senate seat.
At this stage the ALP’s third candidate was eliminated and, not surprisingly, 99.5% of those votes flowed to The Greens, giving them a quota. Then 99.8% of The Greens’ votes in excess of those required for that quota flowed to the Sex Party, widening its lead over the Palmer United Party and even putting it marginally ahead of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party. The Palmer United Party was therefore eliminated with its votes flowing entirely to the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, giving rise to the penultimate position:
| Party |
Quotas |
|
| Liberal/The Nationals |
0.8570 |
|
| Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party |
0.7385 |
) 1.1429 |
| Sex Party |
0.4044 |
) |
| |
1.9999 |
|
The Sex Party was then eliminated, but rather than a full distribution of its votes, the rules provide that counting would cease once a sufficient distribution has occurred to give whichever party the last quota. Of the Sex Party’s votes actually distributed, 88% flowed to the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party, giving it a comfortable win over the Liberal/Nationals for the last quota and Senate seat in Victoria. A hypothetical full distribution assuming the same ratio might have seen the Liberal/Nationals end with 0.9 quotas and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party with 1.1.
What this result has shown is that, provided there are sufficient voters who want to see no party or coalition with an outright majority, minor parties are indeed in a position to secure that outcome as long as they can keep preference leakage to the major parties tightly staunched.
And if this leads to a hung Senate, so what? Without an outright majority, parliament then needs to work as it should, by talking (the word ‘parliament’ comes from the French ‘parler’ – to talk), ie by negotiation and compromise, rather than by ‘to the victor the spoils’.
Minor party voters denied the major parties
Whereas the experts would have us believe that the system has failed because “how could a party possibly be legitimately elected with less than 1% of votes”, many would say that the system has worked because it has enabled the minor party voters, 16% of the electorate in Victoria, to deny that seat to a major party, even if the minor party that did win it wasn’t their first choice.
(All figures in this article are based on data from the ABC’s election website http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/ as at Thursday 12 September 2013).
Geoff Walker is an actuary, whose 40-year career has spanned life insurance, superannuation, banking, funds management and consulting. In the late 1970s he was returning officer for the Victorian Branch of the AMP Society Staff Association, which he claims gives him authority to speak on matters electoral!