I’ve posted about senate voting reforms before and everything I wrote there still applies, in particular I’m still in broad agreement with Antony Green who has posted about the latest proposals here. Basically the proposal is to do away with group voting tickets, and instead allow optional preferential voting both above and below the line, as well there are some extra conditions on party registration.

I think the proposals are fine. While I prefer full preferential to optional preferential, it is less of an issue in multi-member electorates. I would perhaps prefer a minimum number of votes to be formal but this does complicate things (especially as to what that number would be for above or below, and whether it’s fixed or depends on the total number), so it’s reasonable not to have it. I’m not entirely sure that above the line is still needed if you allow optional preferencing of all candidates anyway (though I think in that case you really would need a minimum number or there could be serious problems). The additional requirement on registration is to have 1500 rather than 500 unique members. I’m not completely sold on this being necessary but I don’t think it’s a particular problem either, a serious party should have no problem with this. Independents can still contest as well.

These reforms should be effective in stopping the virtual lottery that the senate election has become, where preference harvesting effectively elects candidates with very little support in the community. Furthermore this has encouraged lots of people to register parties to “enter the lottery” which only makes the vote more complicated through having massive ballot papers that further discourage people from voting below the line (and also can lead to the sort of confusion where Liberal votes vote LDP and Labor voters vote DLP, a factor which has helped both get elected). It does not stop new parties, if they have enough votes they can still get elected. On the plus side also they did not add extra costs, so a movement with genuine support has no obstacle to forming a party.

There were some proposals which I considered poor which I’m glad to see weren’t recommended. There is no minimum threshold of first preferences to get elected. This is good, because as I pointed out in the previous post, people getting elected off a small first preference isn’t the problem, the problem was preference harvesting which made this happen more often when it wasn’t really deserved. A scenario where a candidate is not the first prefence of many, but is preferred by a large number of voters who’s higher preferences get eliminated can still get elected (provided they have enough support to stay in the count). The difference now is that they win because people genuinely preferenced them, not because of preference deals.

There are many comments on this article at the Guardian complaining about the proposals. I think partly this is because the Guardian have framed it as the major parties ganging up on the micros, and lots of people just don’t understand preferences. Now of course the fact that all the large parties are in agreement rightly would raise suspicions about their motives, but claims that this is undemocratic are unsupportable. Some are accusing the Greens of selling out on this, which is crazy given that it’s bascially everyone else coming around to what are essentially proposals the Greens have been making for years. It takes the allocation of preferences away from the parties and leaves it up to voters. It gets rid of the random “lottery”, preference harvesting and the power of “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery. It removes any point to setting up fake parties to divert voters away due to a single issue.

This isn’t to say that Labor and Liberal aren’t doing this out of self-interest, but it just so happens that sometimes the self-interest of those in power happens to intersect with what is the right thing to do – after all this is how we ended up with most good features of our voting system, such as preferential voting.

Update: A couple of things I forgot to mention

– some people are claiming this is all about “maintaining the duopoly”. Rubbish. The reason most senators are Labor or Liberal is that most first preferences are for those parties, if enough people vote for other candidates they get elected (Greens, PUP, LDP, Xenophon would still have been elected in the new system, though with LDP there’s a chance that the smaller paper would mean more people would find the actual party they meant to vote for).

– It would be nice if they fixed the Inclusive Gregory issue for surpluses as well. This is a fairly technical point mostly of interest to voting nerds, but basically the way surpluses are allocated is less than ideal because they needed to simplify it when they were counted by hand, now that should not be an issue.

The SA 2014 election has now been decided with the return of the ALP government with the support of Independent Geoff Brock. The final result for seats in the lower house was 23 ALP, 22 LIB, 2IND, with 24 needed for a majority.

There has been much complaining from both Liberal supporters and figures within the party that this is unfair given that the Liberals won the two party preferred (2PP) vote. Some comments on this:

• The 2PP is an artificial construct that plays no official role in our electoral system.
• It is a fact of mathematics that even in a simplified situation with only two parties in a first past the post election, a result based on electorates does not necessarily agree with a simple majority of the whole population, for example, take 3 equal electorates A,B,C. Suppose party P puts all their effort into A &B and win 51% of the vote, but do not contest C. Then P win the election but the other party wins the 2PP with 66%. There is no cheating, this is the system. If it were any different then no doubt P would put effort into winning votes in C.
• Accusations of a gerrymander are pathetic, particularly coming from supporters of a party which kept in power for many years with an actual gerrymander (i.e. engineering electoral boundaries to maintain an unfair advantage). The SA electorates are redistributed between electorates by law, this is done by the neutral electoral commission and is available for public consultation. The Liberals had a chance to have input and had some changes made in their favour (in particular in Bright). Part of the complication is that they are failing to gain swings in marginal seats, it is questionable that the electoral commission should compensate for this.

Now we are starting to see the attacks on the Independent Geoff Brock.

• In deciding whether to support a minority government an independent is under no obligation to consider the 2pp vote for their state or whether their electorate is “naturally conservative”.
• If you do want to make guesses about the voters of Frome, it’s worth noting from Antony Green’s analysis of the redistribution that “On paper (the redistribution) reverses the two-party preferred margin in Frome, the Labor two-party majority of 0.1% in 2010 becoming an estimated Liberal margin of 1.7%.” The way some people are talking makes it sound like a safe conservative seat where it is very marginal. Given that the Liberal vote was almost 36% percent then it appears that a large majority of the people who voted for Brock would prefer the ALP, and while it is quite possible that the full preference distribution will show more preferred LIB to ALP it is unlikely to be any great majority. The fact is that if people in Frome wanted a Lib government they could have voted Lib.
• There is all sorts of insinuation that he is selling out for personal gain. Once again, his electorate is marginal and his base is Port Pirie, where is was formerly mayor, a strong ALP area in the electorate. I suspect that his parliamentary voting record would show much agreement with the ALP in the previous term. When first elected he had how to vote cards putting Labor above Liberal. This isn’t some sort of about face, it would seem more surprising were he to support the Liberals. He has accepted a ministry for regional development, but still can vote independently on any issue in parliament, this is surely the best way to represent the people who voted for him.

 

 

In South Australia we are 1 week away from a state election, as usual I’ve noticed the question “Who are you giving your prefences to” asked of candidates and will no doubt get the question when handing out how to vote cards on election day.

The problem is there is no easy answer to that question. If the person is asking it of a lower house candidate then it doesn’t make sense because they do not allocate preferences. As in federal elections, to cast a formal vote the voter must number all boxes themselves (* slight disclaimer below), candidates or parties have no say in what happens to your preference apart from giving recommendations on how to vote cards which you are free to ignore.

If the question is about the upper house then there is still no sensible answer. The most accurate answer I could give is that everyone preferences everyone else because they are required to by law. This is not a helpful answer but that’s because the question is not clear. How else could you answer? You could say who is next on your preference list after your own candidates, but is this really what they want to know? Quite often the very next candidate is already eliminated by the time your preference is distributed anyway.  Instead it could be who is higher out of Labor or Liberal, but this might not be helpful either, perhaps another candidate who does have a realistic chance of being elected is higher then both of those in your list. You could try to just give the order of candidates who might be elected but this is impossible, as we saw in the federal election it is impossible to predict who might have a realistic chance of being elected.

So here is what you need to know about preferences:

• In the lower house a formal vote requires you to fill in all preferences yourself, in which case nobody else will allocate your preferences in any way.
• In the upper house you can either allocate preferences to all candidates yourself (this site could help www.clueyvoter.com/) or you can vote for a party or group above the line meaning your preferences are distributed according to their ticket. You are choosing to let someone allocate your preferences.
• The preference tickets are not secret. They are available right now, Antony Green has posted them here www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-03/sa-group-voting-tickets/5294444.
• My recommendation is to decide who you want to vote for in the upper house, and look at their preference ticket. If you agree with it then there is no problem voting above the line. If not, then choose your own preference. Don’t try to predict who is likely to win or where your preference will end up, this is impossible and unnecessary, and advantage of a preferential system is that you are free to put who you like in the order your like without having to predict their chances of winning.
• You can see examples of how preferences work with Antony Green’s calculator www.abc.net.au/news/sa-election-2014/legislative-council/

Finally some examples – what happened to your vote in the 2010 election if you voted above the line? These aren’t necessarily indicative of what will happen this election, they mostly show that preference flows actually did very little at that election.

If you voted Green – your vote elected Green candidate Tammy Franks and then a very small surplus helped to elect Dignity for the Disabled candidate Kelly Vincent over a Liberal candidate (though the Greens surplus was so small as to not really make a difference at this point.)

If you Voted Labor – Your vote helped elect the top 4 Labor candidates and the surplus put Kelly Vincent ahead of the Liberals for the last spot.

If you Voted Liberal – Your vote helped elect the top 4 Liberal candidates and was not distributed any further.

If you voted for Dignity for the Disabled – your vote elected their top candidate at the last stage so no preferences were distributed.

If you voted Family First – Your vote elected their top candidate, a very tiny surplus was distributed to Dignity For the Disabled though they would easily have beaten the liberals for the last spot anyway due to ALP preferences.

If you voted Nationals – your candidate was excluded, your vote moved on to Fair Land Tax party, and when they were excluded it passed to the liberals and was with them when they lost the final spot.

In 2010 Nick Xenophon did not run a group in the state election, however his 2006 result is of interest. His vote was high enough to elect both himself and Anne Bressington, and with a left over quota which looked to put him in the running for a third candidate for a while. In the end his ticket votes were exhausted in the final race between his third candidate and the Greens’ Mark Parnell. Note that Xenophon himself is not contesting this election as he quit his seat to run for the Senate instead, but he is supporting John Darley who replaced him. He is not supporting Bressington who he got elected in 2006 and she is not running for re-election.

Where are ticket votes likely to end up this time? Keeping in mind that accurate predictions are impossible I can still outline some possible outcomes.

Greens – most likely to be used in the attempt to re-elect Mark Parnell. Chances are if he isn’t re-elected it would be at the last stage and your preference would not be distributed, if he is re-elected a distributed surplus is likely to be very small and would most likely go to Dignity for Disabilty (DfD), Xenophon Team or perhaps Labor (at which point it would likely be them against Liberals or Family First).

Labor – It’s very hard to predict how many preference might be distributed from a major party vote, but after elected a number of Labor candidate any Labor preferences would help the Greens and if distributed further could end up with DfD or Family First (i.e. the could conceivably help FF beat Xenophon or Liberal candidate for a spot). With the majors there’s always a fair chance that the preference won’t be distributed at all as well, it can end up in a losing battle for the last spot.

Liberal – once again hard to know how big an effect the preferences will have and there is good chance the preferences will not be distributed at all as in 2010 but if they are they are most likely to elect Family First, with Palmer United and Xenophon Group as other possibilities.

Xenophon – I have no idea what sort of vote the Xenophon group is likely to get without the man himself as a candidate, but due to their split ticket any preferences are likely to help DfD, and then even split between Labor and Liberal if they flow beyond there. If you want to vote Xenophon and you strongly prefer one of Labor or Liberal to the other, or someone else to both of those then a vote below the line would be recommended.

Family First – If preferences flow they could help Palmer United, and most likely would end up with the Liberals if they go any further. They do filter through a lot of right wing microparties on the way though so if there is any big preference harvest (a la Sports or Motor Enthusiasts in the Senate election) then the FF vote could play a big part in it.

Dignity for Disability – If they get elected they won’t have much surplus, but if they fall short I expect they would have a big preference flow that could decide one of the last positions, in which case they are most likely to help Greens, Xenophon, or Labor (in that order so they would help Greens in Greens vs Labor, or Labor in Labor vs Liberal and so on).

Palmer United – prefences are most likely to flow to FF or Lib, though also a number of micro parties such as Shooter & Fishers could benefit.

Shooters & Fishers – Filters through every small party there is but likely to end up with FF or finally the Libs if they are up against Lab or Green at a late stage in the count.

Fishing & Lifestyle – presumably for people who like fishing but not so into shooting. Prefences go straight to Family First. Could end up with DfD or Libs at a later stage.

Multicultural Party – Don’t know much about them, like many micros their preferences go through lots of others so could get caught up in a preference harvest, otherwise likely to end up with DfD or FF. In fight between the bigger parties their preferences end up with Labor (i.e they would support them against Greens or Libs).

For all the others I’ll point out their top amongst the most likely to win spots (based on who has won previously and done well in recent Federal election) – ALP, Lib, Green, Xenophon, FF, DfD, Palmer. Also I’ll show who they have last, i.e. a ticket vote for them means any of the other big parties will be supported against the last one, and I’ll show who they’d support between ALP vs Lib

F.R.E.E Australia Party – top FF, bottom X, Lib
Liberal Democratic – top DfD, bottom Greens, Lib
Stop Population Growth – top Greens, bottom ALP/Lib, ALP/Lib (split ticket)
Nationals – top FF, bottom Greens, Lib
Katter – top FF, bottom Greens, Lib
Joseph Masika – top DfD, bottom X, Lib
Environment Education Disability – their preferences are complicated with lots of lower candidates on party tickets placed higher, I think the top leading candidate is Green, last Palmer, their ALP & Lib prefs are mixed around amongst individual candidates to the extent that you can’t really say who they’d support, it depends on which individual candidates would be left in the count.
Powerful Communities – top Greens, bottom FF, ALP
No Domestic Violence- top ALP, bottom Palmer, ALP
Legal Voluntary Euthanasia – top ALP, bottom FF, ALP
Mark Aldridge Alliance – top Palmer, bottom X, Lib (slightly mixed up between individual candidates but favouring Lib)
Animal Justice – top Green, bottom X, ALP
Your Voice Matters – top DfD, bottom X, ALP/Lib split

 

 

* technical point: as I understand it SA elections differ slightly from federal ones in that candidates are required to submit preference tickets for the lower house which are used to save votes which would otherwise be informal by not numbering enough boxes. If you follow the instructions and submit a formal vote this can have no effect on you whatsoever.