How our preferential voting drives the election result

Today, after a long wait counting preferences in this overly complicated, convoluted, manual preference distributing and redistributing system, Canberra finally gets to know who their second Senate representative will be.

I think that the preferential system brings about a more reasonable outcome than FPTP but I also wonder would the Hare-Clark system (as used in Tasmania) where everyones' preferences get considered in the final tally might lead to the most accurate outcome. Although counting might take an inordinately long time with out computerized voting.

Those advocating FPTP assume that voter behaviour doesn’t change. But clearly it does because in that circumstance a vote for a minor party is wasted because they generally have no chance of winning. So the effect of FPTP is that it destroys minor parties. Some may celebrate that but it reduces the range of views that need to be taken into account.
Secondly, with a field of 6 candidates the one with 20% of the vote can win even though 80% did not want them. The winner may not reflect the community wishes. The British parliament is elected by FPTP. It voted to Remain in Europe. The population as a whole voted for Brexit.

I like being able to put a candidate last. I like our current system, which is easy enough to understand.

The Nazi party got 43.9% of the vote in 1933 in a FPTP voting system. I'm happy to keep the preference system.

In fact, if Australia had the first past the post system, the ALP would not have been able to from a majority government since the 1993 election. Even, the 2007 election was a draw.

I have explained that the preferential system is in effect, the person wins when the electorate would prefer a particular person more than the rest put together or the least overall disliked!

Further, many democracies use a preferential system but they don't do it in a single ballot. They may use the lowest elimination system and keep returning to the polls until 50% + 1 is achieved over multiple rounds. Another common system is if a candidate does not have the 50% + 1, a second round is held where the top two are pitted against each other. Our system eliminates these multiple rounds.

Another point, at this election only 16 candidates achieved more than 50% of the vote on their first preference.

Further to Tony's correct observation that "the primary vote was well down for the two major political parties", it's important to recognise that this is a strong trend not a temporary blip. In 2010, according to the official AEC results, 77.1% of total votes (including informals) were cast for the ALP or Coalition. By 2016 the corresponding figure had fallen to 72.9% and in 2022 (based on AEC figures on 2nd June) it was only 65.2%. Who would suggest that this trend would reverse in 2025? Not me. Preferences may well become even more important.

Ideally, we should have an optional preferential system. This way the voter only votes for the candidates of their choice. This enables voters to reject candidates without having having their vote being invalidated.

I couldn’t agree more! Optional preferential voting is the most democratic option and one that perhaps most people could understand (say… vote for a minimum of 3 candidates in your order of preference). It is totally unfair to have to cast a preference for a lunatic you would never want to see in parliament.

Its my understanding that optional preferential is used in NSW state government election.

Often the major parties offer a full preference how-to-vote, then tell the punters only to mark one preference.

I think that clearly is beneficial to the major parties, and destroys the power of preferential voting.

I agree with your suggestion that at least three preferences should be voted for.

In practice it is rare that a candidate comes completely from behind on preferences.

Hear, bloody hear...

We had 10 H of R candidates in our electorate - Liberal, Labor, Greens, UAP and frankly I don't remember the rest but the thought of actually having to decide between 5 or so extreme minor candidates who aren't expecting to be elected anyway, and are doing it all for reasons of their own is ridiculous. It was a safe Liberal seat and I was heading that way anyway, so went 1 Liberal 2 Labor (because if it wasn't to be LNP in power, as was clear, I really wanted Labor to have a majority in the H of Rs and sideline the teals and Greens) and had to keep numbering all the way to 10, nominating people I would never, in a million years, actually want in power.

We should be able to limit our preferences. OR go full list, but have a diminishing value of each preference re-allocation.

Now I know that would make it all the more complicated, but that's only because we persist in hanging onto a pencil and paper format and it's easier. It could be done very easily using technology in the elections, something everyone seems very shy of.

It'll never happen, of course, as there are too many unknowns for the major parties to contemplate such a change.

I agree that Optional Preferential voting is the way to go.

Up here in QLD, the Labor Party, on being elected in 2015, got rid of OP voting as one of their first acts, as Preferential voting clearly favours Labor, and the minor parties don't seem to understand the preferencing system.(One Nation had an absurd policy of putting sitting MP's last on their How To Vote cards).

Add to that the fact that QLD doesn't have an Upper House (also canned by Labor), whoever is elected enjoys a virtual dictatorship. So much for the 'most democratic' argument.

As a consequence, we have Acts of Parliament severely restricting fund-raising by opposition parties, and other Acts curtailing campaign advertising by the opposition parties. In my opinion there doesn't seem to be any safeguard against the ruling party just outlawing all opposition parties by Act of Parliament.

Again, I agree with those below in that we should have optional preferential voting.
But I would go so far as to allow a simple 1 in a box to be a valid vote.
I heard so many people in line who didn't understand what they were doing. So did an informal vote await?
And, like others below again, I hadn't a clue as to most of the rest.
So donkey vote it as for them then...

Labor under Neville Wran changed to optional preferential in NSW in 1981, as many Liberals were coming from behind on preferences. Compulsory preferential is clearly the best system. It may seem politically opportune to change, but as NSW Labor has found out the tide can change and the system in NSW now works against Labor. It also results in some people just voting 1 in Federal elections and ending up voting informal.

For me, it beggars belief that "First Past the Post" represents effective democracy. As Tony's example shows, FPTP has the potential to disenfranchise far more voters than does our preferential system. For me, I'd like to take it further and have, say, 3-member House of Reps seats, so that the full diversity of political opinion is better represented in our Parliament - and in saying that, I'm not afraid of minority governments at all as I believe having legislation seriously challenged brings better legislation. And wouldn't it be wonderful if the two big kids in the Parliamentary sand pit could learn to play together co-operatively for the benefit of the country rather than expending all their energy on lobbing sand and toys at each other for their own benefit.

An excellent article that should be compulsory prior reading for the many spruikers on social media since 21st May. Unfortunately, the preferential system appears poorly understood by many.

Thanks for the article Tony, the more I read about the preferential system the more I like how we do it in Australia and that my vote can still have some influence if my first preference doesn't work out. I think the senate system is more of an issue, where states with higher populations have their votes diluted as states have an equal number of senate seats. It would be interesting to see the make up of the senate if quotas were consistent across the country and the number of senate seats were based on population (although from the looks of this election count it may not have been much different).

Matt, I think the real question you are asking is whether it is still appropriate to keep the constitutional basis of the Senate continuing to be a "states rights" chamber (ie Tas to have equal votes as NSW). If you were to revert to per capita representation in the Senate, why bother having two Houses at all?

Matt, the Senate set up was required to form our Federation. The smaller states were concerned they'd have no voice. I think that's a correct assumption aswell.

Good point Neil. Thanks for pointing this out.