Hi Australia.
I’m planning on voting as is my duty and my privilege at the upcoming election.
I’m going to preface by saying that I don’t want my votes to go to the Dark Lord or the Liberal Party or the liars in the Labour Party. They are both completely corrupt and I’m adamant that they need to feel some pain.
So then I want to look at the independents and consider what they do and what they don’t do, and will they be truly representative, or are they just there scrambling for votes to get some money and power? Who can say?
So what I’d like to do to make sure the Liberals and Labour don’t get my vote, is find some kind of flowchart, that shows if I vote for an independent or a smaller party, where does that preference go to, so that I don’t feed the party that I don’t want to get my vote in the end.
Is there any resource out there that can show me where the preferences get fed to, so I can make an informed choice.
I feel like this should be a legal obligation, that we are all given this kind of information in a flowchart. But I can’t find it. Can anybody help?
Thank you so much.
Your vote goes where you want it. Preferences do not ever get fed anywhere in Australian federal elections anymore. There was a thing called “group voting tickets” prior to 2016, where you would vote 1 in the Senate “above the line”, and the party could send your vote where they wanted. But these were abolished. They no longer exist. And they never existed in the House of Representatives, anyway. I’ll address both houses separately, and pretend you live in Adelaide and it’s the 2022 election (just because Adelaide is first alphabetically).
House of Representatives
You’ll get a green ballot paper with a number of candidates on it. They are in an order that is randomly chosen by the AEC (but is the same for everyone in an electorate). In your case, 7 candidates, in order: Liberal, Labor, United Australia, FUSION, Greens, Australian Federation, One Nation.
All you have to do is number them in order, with 1 on your favourite, 7 on your least favourite. If your favourite does not achieve 50%, it’ll go to your second favourite. If they don’t get 50%, it goes to your 3rd, etc. In all likelihood, eventually your vote will be given to either the Liberal or Labor, unless you live in one of a small number of electorates where the last two candidates are different (e.g. Greens or an independent).
If you don’t number every box, your ballot will be discarded and won’t count for anything.
Senate
You’ll get a large white ballot paper with a number of columns on it, each column containing up to 6 candidates. There is an “above the line” section and a “below the line” section. Above the line is parties, below the line is individual candidates within those parties.
As you’re (in my hypothetical) from South Australia, your ballot contains 23 columns, labelled A–V, plus the “ungrouped” column. Independents can run entirely ungrouped, or they can form a small group together to get their own column. Like the House of Representatives, everyone in your state gets the same ballot paper, but it’s chosen randomly.
In South Australia in 2022, Liberals are column C. Labor are D. Nationals are G. Greens are P. One Nation is S. You can choose to do research on the others if you like, but to keep it simple I’ll stick with these.
If you vote above the line, you number at least 1 to 6, with 1 on your favourite party. For most people, this is probably what you want to do. If you vote below the line, you number at least 1 to 12, with 1 on your favourite individual candidate. The process is similar to the Reps, but instead of reaching 50%, they need to reach 14.3% (instead of 100%/2, it’s 100%/7, because each state elects 6 senators). And, if a candidate gets more than precisely 14.3%, your vote actually goes to the next candidate on your ballot, proportional to how much more than 14.3% they got.
Voting above-the-line is the same as voting below-the-line for those parties in the order that party wanted. But only in the order that party wanted for their own candidates. So, if you vote 1 Greens, 2 Labor, 3 Nationals, that’s the same as voting
- Barbara Pocock (Greens)
- Major Moogy Sumner (Greens)
- Melanie Selwood (Greens)
- Penny Wong (Labor)
- Don Farrell (Labor)
- Trimann Gill (Labor)
- Joanne Sutton (Labor)
- Belinda Owens (Labor)
- Lisa Blandford (National)
- Damien Buijs (National)
The only reason to vote below-the-line is if you don’t like the order a party puts their own candidates, or if you want to avoid some of a party’s candidates entirely. For example, if you kinda like Barbara Pocock, but you really love Melanie Selwood, and you’re ok with Labor in general, but really love Penny Wong and really hate Don Farrell, you could vote below the line to do this:
- Penny Wong (Labor)
- Melanie Selwood (Greens)
- Barbara Pocock (Greens)
- Major Moogy Sumner (Greens)
- Trimann Gill (Labor)
- Joanne Sutton (Labor)
- Belinda Owens (Labor)
- Lisa Blandford (National)
- Damien Buijs (National)
The other reason to vote below-the-line is if you want to vote for some of the candidates in that “ungrouped” section.
For the vast majority of people, there’s very little reason to do this, just vote above the line. Your vote for the Greens can never go to any other party without you choosing to number that party.
Because you only have to number up to 6 in the Senate, it is possible for your vote to be “exhausted”. In this case, it is as though you never voted at all. It does not make your vote for the candidates you did vote for any stronger than it otherwise would be. All it does is make it easier for the parties you disagree with the most to win. Because of this, I would strongly encourage you to keep numbering all the way until you have numbered every party with any reasonable chance of winning a seat. That means make sure your numbers include: Greens, Labor, LNP (or Liberals and Nationals), One Nation, Trumpet of Patriots, Nick Xenophon, any independents who are particularly strong, like David Pocock in the ACT.
You don’t have to do this, but I recommend you do, because not doing it increases the chance that the party you like the least will win. For example, you might dislike Labor 90% but dislike the LNP 99% and dislike One Nation 99.9%. If you don’t number all three of those parties somewhere in your list, it is more likely that One Nation will end up winning the seat, or the LNP will, rather than Labor. But it won’t increase the chance a party you like wins, such as the Greens or Animal Justice Party. If you think Labor winning would be better than the LNP, or the LNP would be better than One Nation…even by a miniscule amount, you should number them all.
At the last election, I made the mistake of not doing this. I stopped once I got to Labor, I think, or maybe a few smaller parties after Labor. But I didn’t number LNP and One Nation. And unfortunately, One Nation ended up winning the last seat in Queensland, by a small margin, over the LNP. I don’t like either party, but, well…one is clearly worse than the other. I won’t be making that mistake again.
Timing
Close of Rolls is 7th April. If you haven’t already, make sure you’re enrolled and have your address updated with the AEC by this date.
Declaration of nominations is 11th April. After this date you’ll know 100% everyone who is running in your seat for the House of Representatives and in your state for the Senate, and can do research. In the meantime, this Wikipedia page lists most of the major candidates from most parties.
I hope that helps!
I never realised people were so miss informed regarding votes until I watched a YouTube video and the bloke mentioned it.
It’s massive misconception that your vote goes to someone else of their choice not yours.
We really need to educate more people on this.
I have been voting for 30 years and consider myself very aware of the system but this taught me heaps. Thanks!
Wow, that’s interesting. I’m curious, if you don’t mind me asking, what in particular did you learn from this?
I had not realised the subtleties of how preferences in senate votes work now. I vaguely remember reading about it when they brought it in but then promptly forgot . It’s so much less of a hassle now
This should be printed and mailed to every registered voter. Thankyou
Is there any resource out there that can show me where the preferences get fed to, so I can make an informed choice.
You choose your own preferences.
On the House of Representative ballot, this has always been the case. You must number all the boxes.
On the Senate ballot it used to be the case that if you voted ‘above the line’, you could only vote ‘1’, and nothing more, and the parties decided the preference flow. That is not the case anymore. Now, the Senate ballot has partially-optional preferencing ‘above the line’. You must number at least 6 boxes if you vote above the line, but you can number all the boxes above the line if you choose. I would encourage numbering as many preferences as you can with the knowledge you have. (You can also number below the line if you want to pick your own ordering of the candidates for each party/group.)
See: https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_Vote/Voting_Senate.htm
Or: https://www.chickennation.com/voting/senate/ (and the one about House of Representatives voting: https://www.chickennation.com/voting/).
I’m happy to answer any further questions if you have them, don’t hesitate to ask 🙂
(only addressing this part, as the other comments have the important part covered)
I feel like this should be a legal obligation, that we are all given this kind of information in a flowchart. But I can’t find it. Can anybody help?
I’d say the Australian Electoral Commission is the most authentic resource for getting facts about our election (seeing as they run it). I wish some of this information was shoved in our faces more.
The information sheets PDFs linked on this page summarise how the vote count works: https://www.aec.gov.au/learn/preferential-voting.htm
Further reading: The preferential voting system we use in Australia is Single Transferable Vote (with the House of Reps using Instant-Runoff Voting
with optional preferences. IRV is just a single-winner version of STV), but you’ll often hear it just called ‘preferential voting’ here (other preferential voting systems exist, e.g. Borda count).with the House of Reps using Instant-Runoff Voting with optional preferences
Not optional preferences.
Whoops, I was going from memory based on last election. You’re right.
Federally, the Reps has always had compulsory preferential. Things are different at some state and council elections though. For example, in Queensland state elections it’s compulsory, but Council elections have optional preferential. It was an election promise by the LNP to change it to optional preferential in both state and council elections. Because optional preferential helps the LNP a huge amount, by causing some Greens and Labor voters to have their votes exhausted rather than going to the other.
When it comes to preferences they go to the parties/candidates in the order that you number them. Others can suggest where you send your preferences (how to vote cards being the typical method) but ultimately it’s up to you.
For the house of reps if a third party doesn’t win the seat you will ultimately end up voting for Labour or Liberals, because you have to number all the boxes. You’ll have to decide which you like more (or least) and number accordingly. In the senate you can potentially exhaust your vote before reaching the majors (assuming you reach the minimum numbering before getting to them) but unless you truly believe both majors are the same I’d advise including them.
If you vote above the line in the senate your preferences follow party lines as you have numbered them (i.e. preferences will count towards the candidates for the first party you number, then the second and so forth). You still control what parties you’re voting for and what order.
Vote below the line, take your time and get it right then you dictate the preferences.
You don’t need to vote below the line to choose your own preferences in the Senate anymore. ‘Above the line’ voting is now preferential, with at least 6 boxes needing to be numbered.
Okay, firstly GOOD ON YOU for recognising that #LibLab are both corrupt and don’t represent average Australians. It’s great to see demographics have been shifting ever away from the Two Party System.
It is confusing. As noted by previous comment, voting below the line ensures that your absolute preferences are counted.
Where a flowchart would be helpful is with GVTs (that have been abolished almost everywhere see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_voting_ticket) but unfortunately with the lack of knowing for sure in advance the levels of support for each candidate, especially minor & Indies, there’s no real way of knowing for sure who will end up winning from preferences exactly. Best you can do is read up on all the candidates, put #LibLab last (but honestly possibly openly Nazi Nazis dead last, then Libs, then Lab) and everyone else in order of how much you agree with their policy platform.
And talk to people about it. Point out that both major parties only benefit billionaires, in the end.
I’m adamant that they need to feel some pain
Of course you can develop your own decision on how to vote but this sounds frustratingly similar to the protest voters from the US election. Picking a team or punishing a team is a very American notion.
The basic idea is to consider the representatives in your electoral division, consider their policies, their character, and select the one you feel will best represent your own interests and the interests of the people you care about.
For example, if you review the local candidates and determine that the Nationals candidate will best represent your interests then it doesn’t make any sense to vote for an independent just because a National candidate would ultimately support Dutton to form government.
For example, if you review the local candidates and determine that the Nationals candidate will best represent your interests then it doesn’t make any sense to vote for an independent just because a National candidate would ultimately support Dutton to form government.
Sure, that’s technically true. But the fact that a Nationals candidate would support Dutton is part of how they represent your interests (or fail to). If you don’t want Dutton to form Government, voting for the Nationals candidate is a grievous error. Because we have very strong party discipline in this country.
You’re right of course. Which PM is appointed is obviously a function of who is elected as your representative.
However, the way the system is supposed to work is that you select the local representative from the party that has the policies that best align with your own interests.
Voting either ALP or LNP as a proxy for Albo or Dutton based on the vibe might seem like the same thing but it’s really not. That’s how my mum and dad, (dependent on the age pension from Centrelink) always vote LNP against their own interests - voting based on the vibe rather than looking at policies.
The point I was trying to make to OP is to look at the policies and their local interests rather than the personalities of the people who might be PM.
Of course you can develop your own decision on how to vote but this sounds frustratingly similar to the protest voters from the US election.
It is quite literally impossible for those protest voters to exist under our voting system in Australia. Both because we have mandatory, as well as preferential, voting.
I’m not so sure? Are 4th or even 3rd preferences ever counted? If you wanted to “withhold your vote” then just ensure that no one with any likelihood of winning is in your first 4 preferences.
Regardless, it’s the attitude that bugs me more than anything. The US is an absolute god damn shit show and I’ll acknowledge I just get kind of triggered when anything has a whiff of americanism.
The point I was trying to make is I suppose intangible, wistful, and perhaps idealistic… but I just wish Australian politics wasn’t about picking a tribe that you’re going to line up behind and was more focused on policy and representation.
Are 4th or even 3rd preferences ever counted?
What? Yes, they are counted incredibly often, if not always. For an example, here’s the preference flow for the Division of Melbourne in 2022:
They were still counted even when Adam Bandt won in the fourth round. If you don’t think the parties look at the rest of that flow, at which voters they might need to court to win next time, at what candidates might stand the best chance in a seat, than you’re stark-raving mad.
…but I just wish Australian politics wasn’t about picking a tribe that you’re going to line up behind and was more focused on policy and representation.
I think the Murdoch media, and by extension Fairfax now, and every other major outlet, pushes a narrative about that sort of tribalism. But out in the real world, from what I’ve seen, that’s just not the case. The biggest example of this is media and polling pushing a two-party preferred system when we live in a preferential one. Major media isn’t daring to talk about the fairly likely outcome that we end up with a minority government. Something I personally feel is the best outcome for representing Australia equally.
Edit: I’d like to point out as well that the above is a fairly rare example. In most unsafe electorates, no one candidate even comes close to 50% of first preferences like Adam did here.
That’s interesting.
I’ll admit that’s not quite how I thought preferences were counted, but I’m not sure it really supports your point?
If I’m reading that correctly, only 10% of ballots had their 3rd (or more) preference counted.
My original suggestion of casting a protest ballot by keeping the favourite candidates in the lowest preference still works. Although it’s not really a distinct act of protest so much as just the intended operation of the preference system.
You’re looking more for a disruptive or strategic vote.
As for how to strategically vote: look at those preference flows from earlier & pay close attention to the votes per candidate at each stage and how close some might be. Your goal is to try and push one of those last-placed candidates in one of the elimination rounds ahead of 2nd last through your preferences (easiest is to give them your 1 vote).
The ideal outcome would be to get certain preference flows activating earlier to try and alter who makes it to the final two or three.
Except, that’s not really the definition of a protest vote. An actual protest vote is drawing a massive dick on your ballot.
That’s a very rose tinted glasses view of the local impact a federal candidate has, vs the impact of the elected government.
Ignore the word punish. If you don’t like lib/nat wreck and sell plans, don’t vote national no matter what promise they makes to the electorate - it’s highly unlikely they have the ability to hold up their end of the bargain as it’ll be a party decision.
Bad example. Nationals don’t actually represent the interests they claim to. They only continue to be a power because of generational inertia.
Fine. It’s an example. “If” this candidate is the best then vote for them. “if” they don’t represent the interests they claim to then they’re not going to be the best, are they.
I would never vote for anyone right of centre, it just made my point seem a little disingenuous if I was to hold out the greens as an example. OP had already expressed distaste for Liberal so Nationals were first to mind.
I understand. Educating about voting mechanisms without prosletising.
