A feature of our Australian electoral system that I really like is that it is a preferential system, yet it’s frustrating that preferences are widely misunderstood. Many people still talk about only voting for a candidate who they feel can win so as not to waste their vote, and many people fear that their preferences may help to elect someone they don’t want, which can happen, but which can easily be avoided.

Before getting into the details a little disclaimer. I make no secret of the fact that I’m a Greens supporter – the content, colour scheme and title (for francophones, at least) of this blog should give that away! However the purpose of this post is not to tell people who to vote for, much of this advise would apply equally well to a Family First voter as it does to a Greens voter. Futhermore, while I may appear to be advocating a vote for a minor party in general, what I’m really saying is that people should vote for the party/candidate they favour the most, regardless of it being major or minor – it’s just that misunderstanding the preference system would tend to lead to someone voting for a major party when they otherwise favour a minor rather than vice versa.

The House of Representatives

In the lower house preferences are very simple. You number the candidates in the order in which you like them, and make sure you number all candidates. While parties may hand out how-to-vote (HTV) cards advocating certain preferences it is completely up to you what you put down, there is no obligation to follow the HTV. This system means you can vote for anyone you like without “wasting” your vote. If your first candidate gets eliminated your vote carries over at full value to your next preference and so on until someone is elected. In practice, most HoR elections in Australia reduce to a race between Labor and Liberal, so the main thing is which of the major parties appears first amongst your preferences. In such a situation a vote of say 1 Labor, 2 Liberal will have the same effect as one with 5 Labor, 6 Liberal with 4 other candidates first, as far as the election of the candidate goes. There is a difference however in that preference number 1 is always important. If a major party wins only with preferences rather than through 1’s for them, they will pay attention to where the preferences come from. This may affect their policy, and gives the minor parties more leverage in getting preferences in the Senate, which may make a significant difference. What’s more the Australian Electoral Commission allocates funding based on the percentage of primary votes (as long as it is above the threshold level of 4% of voters) At the last federal election the Liberal Party received $17,956,326.48 and the Labor Party received $16,710,043.43. If people aren’t happy with the major parties, but vote for them since they are the only ones who can win, then they are giving them funding to further entrench the two party system and resulting lack of choice, whereas if there is another candidate you actually prefer, then a vote for them can help them work towards becoming a serious contender in the future. In a prefential system any vote which isn’t for the candidate who you favour is in my opinion a wasted vote.

The Senate

In the senate the calculation of preferences is a bit more complicated, but really it boils down to the same thing – the best approach is to number the candidates in the order you like them, regardless of what you think their chances of actually winning are. If someone is eliminated then you vote transfers to your next preference at full value. Where it gets complicated is when someone is elected with more than a quota, in which case the excess leads to the preferences of those who elected them being transfered at reduced value. The real cause of confusion in the senate election is voting above the line. In this case you are letting the party of your choice allocate your preferences, and it is this that has led to some voters feeling like their vote has been used to elect someone they didn’t want, creating what I feel to be an unwarranted suspicion of preferential voting. You can avoid this by voting below the line – it isn’t that difficult! You just have to number all the candidates as with the HoR.

If you still want to vote above the line then check out the party tickets for your state at the ABC election site. (Playing around with Antony Green’s senate calculator is a good way of getting your head around how preference flows work too)

This time around most of the main parties have preferenced pretty much as you would expect them to on ideology (so no repeat of Labor preferencing Family First above the Greens which is what got Steve Fielding elected to parliament last time). There are however a few things to watch out for

• In SA Independent Nick Xenophon has a split ticket. This means he submits two sets of preferences, and half the above the line (ATL) votes for him follow each ticket. On both tickets his running mates are second and third, but one then goes to the Greens while the other goes to Family First. I suspect that many people happy with one of these options would not be happy with the other, but by voting ATL their vote is effectively split half each way, so Xenophon voters concerned about preferences should definitely consider voting below the line (BTL). In fact there is another reason they might want to consider this. At the state election Xenophon’s vote was so high that his running mate Ann Bressington was also elected. If recent polling is to be believed then there is a chance that something like this could happen again, so people who want to vote 1 Xenophon should look into what they want to do with their 2 vote – do they want it to elect his running mate, or would they rather a preference going elsewhere.
• In a number of states the preferences of the Climate Change Coalition are not what might be expected. Here in SA there is nothing out of the ordinary but in NSW they preference the Fishing Party ahead of the Greens (I would be rather surprised if the Fishing Party have a better Climate Change policy than the Greens), and Pauline Hanson’s party, One Nation and the Shooters ahead of Labor. In WA they preference the LDP above the Greens, a party who advocate that the Government take no action on climate change and that market-based solutions will suffice. While I certainly disagree with this, my point here is not to criticise their policy, just to point out that it is surely at odds with the preferences of those who vote for the CCC – after all you would suspect that one would vote 1 for a party called the “Climate Change Coalition” because your main concern in the election was that the Government take some sort of action on climate change. Even higher up are Family First who seem to be largely campaigning on reducing petrol tax. There are similar preferences in many states so I would suggest that anyone who would like to vote for CCC should first look at the preferences, and should they disagree with them, they can consider voting below the line with their own preferences instead.\

UPDATE: Dean Jaensch writes about preferences.