active_apathy | Election /iːˌlekʃən, ə-/ (n.)

With polling places across the country opening at 8:00am (and closing at 6:00pm. 6:00pm. Remember this. VOTE BEFORE 6:00PM, OR ELSE) it seems like a reasonably good opportunity to explain how this whole voting caper works here.

So!

1 - Australian Federal Parliament: a Primer

The Australian Federal Parliament is made up of two houses. These are known as the House of Representatives (or Lower House) and the Senate (or Upper House). Elections are held every three years.

1.1 - Australian House of Representatives

This house of Parliament has 150 members, with each representing a single-member electorate of 59,000-120,000 voters, with the number of voters being about equal for all of the electorates in any particular state. Electorates are often called "seats", after the squishy green furniture on offer in the House for those who win.

Every seat in the House of Reps is contested every election. If a party ~~should triumph over the Lower House~~ wins 76 or more seats in the Lower House their special bonus prize is the chance to form Government, and the party leader becomes Prime Minister.

For the last 12 years, this majority has been held by a coalition of the Liberal-in-name-only Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia, and the Prime Minister has been impersonated by a bald, wrinkled muppet with large eyebrows and some kind of speech impediment.

1.2 - Australian Senate

The Senate is required by the Constitution to be about half the size of the House of Representatives, with each state having an equal number of Senators. Each of the six states has twelve Senators, while the two territories have two each. For those playing at home, that makes a total of 76 Senators.

Each election, about half of the Senate seats are contested (36 state seats, and all 4 territory seats), meaning most Senators have six-year terms. If a party wins a majority in the Senate, it's either a neat little bonus (if the Government does it) or merry hell (if the Opposition does it).

For the last 3 years, the Coalition has held a majority in the Senate; as a country, I think we need to look at that and say: "oops".

2 - But isn't this about elections?

Indeed it is! So, without further ado...

2.1 - Voting Equipment and Procedures

Voters in Australia use sophisticated electoral equipment which may be unfamiliar to voters in other countries, particularly the United States; a system free of chads, voting machines, chads, electronic touch-screeny-thingies, chads, levery-punch-card-thingies or old ladies demonstrating how to hack the tallies.

Each voter is provided with two vote collection devices made of a highly-technical flexible writing surface made of acid-free hydrogen-bonded plant fibres, commonly known as PAPER. The voter then takes these pieces of PAPER to a VOTING BOOTH made of cardboard. Votes are registered on the PAPER by making marks with a stick of a clay/graphite mix encased in wood, commonly called a PENCIL. Once the PAPER is appropriately marked with the PENCIL, the PAPER is folded once and placed in a sealed cardboard receptacle called a BALLOT BOX.

If, at any time, the voter feels they've made a mistake, they can be issued with new vote collection devices.

2.2 - The House of Representatives, or: Preferential Voting and You!

The House of Representatives uses a preferential voting system, elsewhere called 'instant-runoff'. Voters may only vote for candidates in their own electorates, and candidates are voted for in order of preference.

To win a seat, a candidate needs to get more than half of the vote for that electorate. Since it's rare for this to happen on first preferences alone, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, with their votes being redistributed according to their next preference. This continues until someone wins the seat.

To register a vote for the House of Representatives, you use the little green sheet of PAPER. Upon this PAPER, you write numbers in the boxes next to the names of the candidates in order from WANT (1) to DO NOT WANT (...whatever the number of candidates is).

For the politically unaware, party affiliations are written under candidate names.

2.3 - The Senate, or: Single Transferable Votes and You!

The Senate uses a single transferable vote system, which looks rather a bit like a preferential vote unless you're paying attention. Voters may only vote for senators for their state or territory, and may vote for either a group ticket, or for all the candidates in order of preference.

To win a Senate seat, a candidate must reach a certain quota of the vote for their state (or territory). Since 6 senators are elected in each state at any given election, the quota is about one-seventh (or one-third for the territory seats).

To register a vote for the Senate, you use the big white sheet of PAPER. The sometimes very big white sheet of PAPER. There's two options here, divided by a big black line.

Above the line are the group voting tickets. In practice, these are options where the group has figured out where all the preferences will go; pick whichever group you like, write a 1 in its box, and off you go.

Sometimes, though, you want the satisfaction of putting the raving neocon loon as your ninety-seventh preference, in which case you vote below the line. If you vote this way, you number all the boxes below the line in order from WANT (1) to DO NOT WANT (...whatever the number of candidates is), and - this is important - number none of the boxes above the line.

For the politically unaware, party affiliations are shown for the group tickets and for individual candidates, so you can tell the Have a Party Party from the We're In Ur Parlamentz, Takin' Ur Rightz! Party (which may or may not be an alternative name for the Liberal-in-name-only Party of Australia, or for Family First. Who knows?)

3 - How to Vote

So, you know how they hand out those 'how to vote' cards at a legally-required distance from polling places?

This isn't quite one of those. Let's call this "How to Vote Like active_apathy", which is both a semi-practical demonstration of how to fill in a ballot paper and a sweeping statement on a teensytinylittle bit of Australian politics. Whee.

3.1 - The House of Representatives

I'll get... a staggering four candidates in my electorate. Four. Yay.

So, Labor and the Greens get 1 and 2, respectively. Next it's a choice of the Liberal-in-name-only Party or the... Citizens Electoral Council? WTF?

*checks Wikipedia*

...so, it's further right than the Liberals-in-name-only. That settles it. 3 for the Liberal-in-name-only Party, and 4 for the CEC.

3.2 - The Senate

Sixteen senate candidates. Sixteen! Elections here (ie, in this particular part of the country) are astonishingly boring, but we'll venture below the line anyway.

Let's see: 1-4, some combination of Labor and Green. 5 and 6 can be the Democrats, who'd actually be getting my Labor and Greens preferences anyway under their 'ANYONE BUT HOWARD! DO NOT WANT!' agreement.

Five parties, ten candidates. Nine candidates and Lisa Milat, and my preferences don't matter this far down, but still. 16 for Lisa Milat, 15 for Gary Humphries, 14 for the Random Unknown Liberal-in-name-only, and that's my voting-against all done. Yay.

If only I could stand back and throw darts at the Senate paper for the other spots.

(HINT: don't throw darts at your Senate paper, partly because it's illegal, and mostly because your vote won't count.)

So... hmm. 7 and 8 for the Climate Change Coalition, 13 for Milat's party affiliate, and some combination of 9-12 for the other platforms. Oh, hey, the Nuclear Disarmament Party candidates have the same last name. Cute. 10 and 11 for them.

And there you have it, the electoral process at work. Come back after the counting for 'Yaaaaaay!', 'NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!', or '...recounts?!' depending on the outcome.

Current Music: Planescape: Torment Soundtrack - Curst Battle

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

packbat.livejournal.com

I like your voting system! If it weren't for ... well, everything, I'd be campaigning to swipe it for the U.S.

From:

active-apathy.livejournal.com

It's a good system (and I like it more and more every time you have an election); it's like they got together, made a list of ways a voting system can suck, and decided to not do most of them.

From:

matgb

I'm involved in a campaign to swipe it for the UK. But by swipe what I really mean is "actually implement it like what we were promised a hundred years ago.

I mean, even the Irish use STV, if it's good enough for them.

But still, nice little summary, I likes it.

Election /iːˌlekʃən, ə-/ (n.)

1 - Australian Federal Parliament: a Primer

2 - But isn't this about elections?

3 - How to Vote

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