Australian electoral system
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This article deals with elections to the Australian Parliament. For the Australian state and territories, see Electoral systems of the Australian states and territories.
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The Australian electoral system has evolved over nearly 150 years of continuous democratic government, and has a number of distinctive features including compulsory voting, preferential voting (known elsewhere as instant-runoff voting) and the use of proportional voting to elect the upper house, the Australian Senate.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Compulsory voting
Australia enforces compulsory voting, including compulsory enrolment (registration) to vote.[2] Compulsory voting was introduced in 1924 [3]. The immediate impetus for compulsory voting at federal level was the low voter turnout (59.38%) [1] in the federal elections of 1922. Voting is compulsory both at federal elections and at elections for the state and territory legislatures. In some states voting at municipal elections is also compulsory. About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote at most elections. People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a relatively small fine is imposed ($20-$70)[4] , and failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing.
It is commonly but wrongly claimed [2] that it is compulsory to only attend a polling place and have one's name checked against the electoral roll. In fact, Section 245 of the Electoral Act [3] says that "It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election... The Electoral Commissioner must, after polling day at each election, prepare for each Division a list of the names and addresses of the electors who appear to have failed to vote at the election." A voter who has their name crossed off but then refuses a ballot paper or is seen not to put the ballot in the ballot box will be recorded as having not voted.
Those who do not wish to vote for any of the available candidates sometimes resort to informal voting — placing a blank or incompletely filled out ballot in the ballot box. Even though informal voting is illegal and technically subject to the same penalties as failure to vote, it is impossible to identify or penalise those who do so without violating the secrecy of the ballot. The number of informal votes is recorded, but they are not counted as part of the total number of votes cast. Around 95% of eligible Australians attend polling, and around 5% of Representatives votes are informal [5]
Some political scientists believe that compulsory voting benefits the Australian Labor Party, while others dispute this. It is argued that most of the social groups who would tend not to vote if voting were voluntary are more inclined to vote Labor (people from the ethnic and immigrant communities, indigenous Australians, and people with lower levels of education). Occasionally conservative politicians or libertarian intellectuals argue for the abolition of compulsory voting on philosophical grounds, but no government has ever attempted to abolish it.
Following the 2004 federal elections, at which the Liberal-National coalition government won a majority in both Houses, a senior minister, Senator Nick Minchin, said that he favoured the abolition of compulsory voting. The then government gave no indication, however, that it would legislate to this effect, and indeed did not do so before being defeated in the 2007 federal election. Some prominent Liberals, such as Petro Georgiou, former chair of the Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, have spoken in favour of compulsory voting.
Because it maximises voter turnout, compulsory voting also maximises the quantum of campaign cost reimbursement--public moneys paid to candidates and parties polling a minimum of 4 per cent at an election.
[edit] Preferential voting
Australia uses various forms of preferential voting for almost all elections. Under this system, voters number the candidates on the ballot paper in the order of their preference. The preferential system was introduced in 1918, in response to the rise of the Country Party, a party representing small farmers. The Country Party split the anti-Labor vote in conservative country areas, allowing Labor candidates to win on a minority vote. The conservative government of Billy Hughes introduced preferential voting as a means of allowing competition between the two conservative parties without putting seats at risk. It was first used at the Corangamite by-election on 14 December 1918 [4]. It had previously been introduced as a result of the work of Thomas Hare and Andrew Inglis Clark in the Tasmanian House of Assembly.
Preferential voting has gradually extended to both upper and lower houses, in the federal, state and territory legislatures, and is also used in municipal elections, and most other kinds of elections as well, such as internal political party elections, trade union elections, church elections, elections to company boards and elections in voluntary bodies such as football clubs. Negotiations for disposition of preference recommendations to voters are taken very seriously by candidates owing to the fact that transferred preferences carry the same weight as primary votes. The federal Senate electoral system and those for some state legislatures now provide for simultaneous registration of party-listed candidates and party-determined orders of voting preference, known as 'group voting tickets'.
Under this system, voters can opt to either 'vote above the line' simply by placing the number '1' in a single box or to 'vote below the line' by numbering a large number of individual candidate's boxes in the order of their own preference. In the latter option, there is a risk that the vote will be declared invalid ('informal') if any number in the sequence is inadvertently duplicated or omitted. However, an estimated 95% of all votes are cast 'above the line', meaning that the precise valuation of those votes is passed to the control of the party receiving the single primary vote. The electoral authority automatically allocates preferences, or votes, in the predetermined order outlined in the group voting ticket. Each party or group can register up to three group voting tickets. This highly complex system has potential for unexpected outcomes, including the possible election of a candidate who may have initially received an insignificant primary vote tally.
With the exception of an experiment with voting machines in the Australian Capital Territory [5], all Australian elections are carried out using paper ballots.
[edit] Gerrymandering and malapportionment
Australian history has seen very little gerrymandering of electoral boundaries, which have nearly always been drawn up by civil servants or independent boundary commissioners. But Australia has seen systematic malapportionment of electorates (the allocation of more or fewer electoral districts to one part of a country or state than its population would merit), and indeed until fairly recently this was considered a perfectly natural and defensible practice in some states.
All the colonial legislatures before Federation, and the federal parliament after it, saw country districts allocated more representation than their populations merited. This was justified on several grounds: that country people had to contend with greater distances and hardships and thus deserved greater representation; that country people (and specifically farmers) produced most of the nation's real wealth, and thus deserved greater representation; and that greater country representation was necessary to balance the radical tendencies of the urban population.
In the 19th century these assertions usually reflected genuinely held beliefs. By the 20th century, and especially after the rise of the Labor Party, they became increasingly self-serving rationalisations by politicians (usually conservatives) who benefitted from the malapportionment. In the later 20th century these arguments were increasingly and usually successfully challenged, and the malapportionment was reduced and finally abolished in all states.
The most conspicuous examples of malapportionment were South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia.
In South Australia the 1856 Constitution stipulated that there must be two rural constituencies for every urban constituency, and this remained in force until 1968, by which time the urban-rural voter ratio was almost exactly reversed: that is, there were two urban voters for every rural voter. As a result, rural seats had on average one-quarter the number of voters that urban seats had. This gross distortion enabled Sir Thomas Playford to hold office as Liberal and Country League premier of South Australia from 1938 to 1965, despite losing several elections by wide margins in terms of votes. This arrangement was popularly called "the Playmander," although it was not strictly speaking a gerrymander.
In Queensland, the malapportionment initially benefitted the Labor Party, since many small rural constituencies were dominated by rural workers organised into the powerful Australian Workers Union. But after 1957, the Country Party (later renamed the National Party) governments of Sir Frank Nicklin and Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen were able to manipulate the electoral system so that the National Party could win elections with only a quarter of the first preference votes. This "Bjelkemander" was not overcome until the final defeat of the Nationals in 1989.
Western Australia retained a significant malapportionment until 2005. On 20 May 2005 the state Parliament passed new electoral laws, removing the malapportionment. Under the previous system, votes in the country were worth up to four times the value of votes in Perth, the state's capital city. Under the new laws, electorates must have a population of 21,343, with a permitted variation of 10%. Electorates with a land area of more than 100,000km² (40,000 mi²) are permitted to have a variation of 20% in recognition of the difficulty of representing the sparsely populated north and east of the state. [6]
Additionally, large district would be attributed and extra number of notional voters, equal to 1.5% the area of the district in square kilometres, for the purposes of this calculation. This Large District Allowance will permit large rural districts to have many fewer voters than the average district enrolment. The West Australian Electoral Commission [7] gives the following example: Central Kimberley-Pilbara district has 12601 electors and an area of 600038 square kilometres. The average district enrolment for WA is 21343. Central Kimberley-Pilbara thus obtains 9000 notional extra electors, bringing its notional total to 21601, which is acceptably close to the average district enrolment.
[edit] The Parliament
The Parliament of Australia is a bicameral (two-house) Parliament. It combines some of the features of the Parliament of the United Kingdom with some features of the United States Congress. This is because the authors of the Australian Constitution had two objectives: to reproduce as faithfully as possible the Westminster system of parliamentary government, while creating a federation in which there would be a division of powers between the national government and the states, regulated by a written Constitution.
In structure, the Australian Parliament resembles the United States Congress. There is a House of Representatives elected from single-member constituencies of approximately equal population, and there is a Senate consisting of an equal number of Senators from each state, regardless of population (there are also Senators representing the territories).
But in function, the Australian Parliament follows the Westminster system. The Prime Minister holds office because he can command the support of the majority of the House of Representatives, and must resign or advise an immediate election if the House passes a vote of no confidence in his administration. All ministers are members of Parliament (although the Constitution permits a person who is not currently a member of parliament to hold a ministerial portfolio for a maximum period of three months).
[edit] The House of Representatives
The Australian House of Representatives has 150 members elected from single-member constituencies (usually called seats or electorates in Australia; see Australian electorates) for three-year terms. Voters must fill out the ballot paper by numbering all the candidates in order of their preference. Failure to number all the candidates, or an error in numbering, renders the ballot informal (invalid) [8]. The average number of candidates has tended to increase in recent years: there are frequently 10 or 12 candidates in a seat, and at the Wills by-election in April 1992 there were 22 candidates. This has made voting increasingly onerous, but the rate of informal voting has increased only slightly.
The low rate of informal voting is largely attributed to advertising from the various political parties indicated how a voter should number their ballot paper, called a How-to-Vote Card. On election day, volunteers from political parties stand outside polling places, handing voters a card which advises them how to cast their vote for their respective party. Thus, if a voter wishes to vote for the Liberal Party, they may take the Liberal How-to-Vote Card and follow its instructions. While they can lodge their vote according to their own preferences, Australian voters show a high degree of party loyalty in following their chosen party's card.
The challenge of numbering the ballot paper leads a certain number of voters to simply number the candidates sequentially from 1 to the number of candidates down the ballot paper. This practice is commonly referred to as donkey voting. It gives some advantage to the candidate at the top of the ballot paper. Before 1984, candidates appeared in alphabetical order, which led to a profusion of Aaronses and Abbotts contesting elections. (The most famous example of this was the 1937 election, in which the Labor Senate ticket in New South Wales consisted of candidates named Armour, Ashley, Armstrong and Arthur: all were elected.) Since 1984 ballot paper order has been decided at random by drawing lots prior to printing of the ballot papers.
[edit] The House Count
The form of preferential voting used in the House of Representatives is known in other countries such as the USA as instant runoff voting, IRV or the alternative ballot.
When the polls close at 6pm on election day, the votes are counted. The count is conducted by officers of the Australian Electoral Commission, watched by nominated volunteer observers from the political parties, called scrutineers. The votes from each polling booth in the electorate are tallied at the office of the returning officer for the electorate. If one of the candidates has more than 50% of the vote, then she or he is declared elected. Australian politics are influenced by social and economic demographics, though the correlation between "class" and voting is not always simple [9]. Typically, the Labor Party will poll higher in strongly working-class seats, the Liberal party in middle-class seats, and the National Party in rural seats. In a strong seat, the elected party might win up to 80% of the two-party preferred vote. In the 2004 Federal Election, the highest winning margin in a seat was 25.1% [10], with most seats marginal by less than 10%.
In the remaining seats, no single candidate will have a majority of the primary votes (or first-preference votes). A hypothetical result might look like this:
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White (Democrat) 6,000 06.0% Smith (Labor) 45,000 45.0% Jones (Liberal) 35,000 35.0% Johnson (Green) 10,000 10.0% Davies (Ind) 4,000 04.0%
On election night, an interim distribution of preferences called a TCP (Two Candidate Preferred) count is performed. The electoral commission nominates the two candidates it believes are most likely to win the most votes and all votes are distributed immediately to one or the other preferred candidate[11]. This result is indicative only and subsequently the formal count will be performed after all "declaration" (e.g. postal, absent votes) votes are received.
In this example, the candidate with the smallest vote, Davies, will be eliminated, and his or her preferences will be distributed: that is, his or her 4,000 votes will be individually re-allocated to the remaining candidates according to which candidate received the number 2 vote on each of those 4000 ballot papers. Suppose Davies's preferences split 50/50 between Smith and Jones. After re-allocation of Davies's votes, Smith would have 47% and Jones 37% of the total votes in the electorate. White would then be eliminated. Suppose all of White's preferences went to Smith. Smith would then have 53% and would be declared elected. Johnson's votes would not need to be distributed.
Here is a real example of the operation of preferential voting in Australia, from the federal election of 1990: Charles Blunt was the leader of the conservative National Party of Australia, representing Richmond, a traditional National Party seat in northern New South Wales. The intervention of the anti-nuclear campaigner, Dr Helen Caldicott, allowed the Labor candidate, Neville Newell, to win the seat despite polling only 27% of the primary vote. Note that Caldicott also had a good chance of winning the seat – if all of Gibbs' preferences had gone to her as directed on the How-to-Vote card, she would have drawn ahead of Newell and won on his preferences.
RICHMOND, NSW 73,794 enrolled, 70,571 (95.6%) voted ==================================================================== North Coast NSW: Byron Bay, Lismore, Murwillumbah, Tweed Heads -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1987 two-party majority: NPA over ALP 06.6 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Stan Gibbs AD 4,346 06.3 (-00.8) Neville Newell ALP 18,423 26.7 (-08.5) Gavin Baillie 187 00.3 Alan Sims CTA 1,032 01.5 Ian Paterson 445 00.6 Dudley Leggett 279 00.4 Charles Blunt * NPA 28,257 40.9 (-10.2) Dr Helen Caldicott 16,072 23.3 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1,530 (02.2%) informal 69,041 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Caldicott was an independent Green candidate. --------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd count: Baillie's 187 votes distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------- Gibbs 34 (18.4) 4,380 06.3 Newell 44 (23.8) 18,467 26.7 Sims 21 (11.4) 1,053 01.5 Paterson 35 (18.9) 480 00.7 Leggett 15 (08.1) 294 00.4 Blunt * 17 (09.2) 28,274 41.0 Caldicott 19 (10.3) 16,091 23.3 (exhausted 2 2 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- > 187 69,041 --------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd count: Leggett's 294 votes distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------- Gibbs 40 (13.9) 4,420 06.4 Newell 17 (05.9) 18,484 26.8 Sims 6 (02.1) 1,059 01.5 Paterson 50 (17.4) 530 00.8 Blunt * 29 (10.1) 28,303 41.0 Caldicott 146 (50.7) 16,237 23.5 (exhausted 6 8 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- > 294 69,041 --------------------------------------------------------------------
4th count: Paterson's 530 votes distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------- Gibbs 84 (16.3) 4,504 06.5 Newell 60 (11.7) 18,544 26.9 Sims 57 (11.1) 1,116 01.6 Blunt * 113 (21.9) 28,416 41.2 Caldicott 201 (39.0) 16,438 23.8 (exhausted 15 23 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- > 530 69,041 --------------------------------------------------------------------
5th count: Sims's 1,116 votes distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------- Gibbs 179 (16.3) 4,683 06.8 Newell 139 (12.6) 18,683 27.1 Blunt * 562 (51.1) 28,978 42.0 Caldicott 220 (20.0) 16,658 24.1 (exhausted 16 39 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1,116 69,041 --------------------------------------------------------------------
6th count: Gibbs's 4,683 votes distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------- Newell 1,555 (33.8) 20,238 29.4 Blunt * 800 (17.4) 29,778 43.2 Caldicott 2,245 (48.8) 18,903 27.4 (exhausted 83 122 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- > 4,683 69,041 --------------------------------------------------------------------
7th count: Caldicott's 18,903 votes distributed -------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWELL 14,426 (77.4) 34,664 50.5 Blunt * 4,202 (22.6) 33,980 49.5 (exhausted 275 397 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------- > 18,903 69,041 00.5 07.1 to ALP --------------------------------------------------------------------
The exhausted counts correspond to votes that ought to be informal, if strictly following the rules above, but were deemed to have expressed some valid preferences. The Electoral Act has since been amended to almost eliminate exhausted votes.
[edit] Two-party majorities, swings and pendulums
Since 1984 the preferences of all candidates in House of Representatives seats have been distributed, even if this is not necessary to determine the winner of the seat. This is done to determine the percentage of the votes obtained by the winning candidate after the distribution of all preferences. This is called the two-party preferred vote. For example, if (in the example given above), Smith finished with 58% of the vote after the distribution of Johnson's preferences, Smith's two-party vote would be 58% and the seat would be said to have a two-party majority of 8%. It would therefore need a two-party swing of 8% to be lost to the other side of politics at the next election.
Once the two-party majorities in all seats are known, they can then be arranged in a table to show the order in which they would be lost in the event of an adverse swing at the next election. Such tables frequently appear in the Australian media and are called election pendulums or sometimes Mackerras pendulums after the political scientist Malcolm Mackerras, who popularised the idea of the two-party vote in his 1972 book Australian General Elections.
Here is a sample of the federal election pendulum from the 2001 election, showing some of the seats held by the Liberal-National Party coalition government, in order of their two-party majority. A seat with a small two-party majority is said to be a marginal seat or a swinging seat. A seat with a large two-party majority is said to be a safe seat, although "safe" seats have been known to change hands in the event of a large swing.
-
Seat State Majority Member Party HINKLER Qld 00.0 Paul Neville NPA SOLOMON NT 00.1 Dave Tollner Lib ADELAIDE SA 00.2 Hon Trish Worth Lib CANNING WA 00.4 Don Randall Lib DOBELL NSW 00.4 Ken Ticehurst Lib PARRAMATTA NSW 01.1 Ross Cameron Lib McEWEN Vic 01.2 Fran Bailey Lib PATERSON NSW 01.4 Bob Baldwin Lib HERBERT Qld 01.6 Peter Lindsay Lib RICHMOND NSW 01.6 Hon Larry Anthony NPA DEAKIN Vic 01.7 Philip Barresi Lib EDEN-MONARO NSW 01.7 Gary Nairn Lib HINDMARSH SA 01.9 Hon Christine Gallus Lib
[edit] Redistributions
The boundaries of Australian electoral constituencies are drawn up by the Australian Electoral Commission, an independent statutory authority, completely independent of political considerations. Members of Parliament and political parties may make submissions to the Commission on proposed new boundaries, but any interference with the Commission's deliberations would be a serious offence.
The Electoral Act requires that all seats have approximately equal numbers of enrolled voters. When the Commission determines that population shifts within a state have caused some seats to have too many or too few voters, new boundaries are drawn up. This is called a redistribution. Redistributions are also held when the Commission determines (following a formula laid down in the Act) that the distribution of seats among the states and territories must be changed because some states are growing faster than others.
In 2003, for example, redistributions were held in Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. South Australia lost one seat, while Queensland gained a seat. Victoria kept the same number of seats, but one seat was abolished and one new seat created.
[edit] Casual vacancies
If a member's seat becomes vacant mid-term, whether through resignation, death or some other possible reasons, a by-election may be held. Further details are at Casual vacancy (Australian Parliament).
[edit] The Senate
The Australian Senate has 76 members: each of the six states elects 12 Senators, and the Northern Territory (NT) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) each elect two Senators. The several other Australian Territories have very small populations and are represented by Northern Territory and ACT Senators (for example, Christmas Island residents are represented by NT Senators, while Jervis Bay Territory residents are represented by ACT Senators).
Senators for the states serve six-year terms, with half the Senators from each state being elected at each federal election. The terms of the territory Senators coincide with the duration of the House of Representatives.
The Senate is elected both proportionately and preferentially, except that each state has an equal number of seats so that the distribution of seats to states is non-proportional to the total Australian population. Thus, although within each state the seats proportionally represent the vote for that state, overall the smaller states are proportionally stronger in representation for their population compared to larger states.
In each state, political parties which are registered with the Electoral Commission present lists of candidates, which appear as a group on the Senate ballot paper. Independents and members of unregistered parties can also nominate, but they cannot appear on ballot paper as a group.
Voters can vote for the Senate in one of two ways. They can number all the candidates, as they would with a House of Representatives ballot: but since there may be 50 or 60 candidates on the ballot paper, few voters do this. This is called below the line voting. Or they can simply write "1" in a box indicating which party list for which they wish to vote. This is called above the line voting. Over 95% of voters cast their votes above the line.
[edit] The Senate Count
The form of preferential voting used in the Senate is technically known as the single transferable vote or STV.
The system for counting Senate votes is very complicated, and a final result is sometimes not known for several weeks. When the Senate vote is counted, a quota for election is determined. This is the number of valid votes cast, divided by the number of Senators to be elected plus one.
For example, here is the Senate result for the state of New South Wales from the 1998 federal election. For greater clarity the votes cast for 50 minor party and independent candidates have been excluded.
The quota for election was 3,755,725 divided by seven, or 536,533.
Enrolment: 4,031,749 Turnout: 3,884,333 (96.3%) Informal votes: 128,608 (03.3%) Formal votes: 3,755,725 Quota for election: 536,533 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve HUTCHINS ALP 1,446,231 38.5 ELECTED 1 Hon John Faulkner * ALP 2,914 00.1 Group H Michael Forshaw * ALP 864 00.0 Q:2.7073 Ursula Stephens ALP 2,551 00.1
David Oldfield ON 359,654 09.6 Group K Brian Burston ON 570 00.0 Q:0.6729 Bevan O'Regan ON 785 00.0
Bill HEFFERNAN * Lib 1,371,578 36.5 ELECTED 2 Dr John Tierney * Lib 1,441 00.0 Group L Sandy Macdonald * NPA 1,689 00.0 Q:2.5638 Concetta Fierravanti-Wells Lib 855 00.0
Aden Ridgeway AD 272,481 07.3 Group M Matthew Baird AD 457 00.0 Q:0.5142 Suzzanne Reddy AD 2,163 00.1 David Mendelssohn AD 809 00.0
John Sutton Grn 80,073 02.1 Group U Catherine Moore Grn 748 00.0 Q:0.1521 Lee Rhiannon Grn 249 00.0 Suzie Russell Grn 542 00.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 128,608 (03.3%) informal 3,755,725 --------------------------------------------------------------------
In this table, the Group number allocated to each list is shown at right. Below that is the number of quotas polled by each list. Thus, "Q:2.7073" next to the Labor Party list indicates that the Labor candidates between them polled 2.7073 quotas.
It will be seen that the leading Labor and Liberal candidates, Hutchins and Heffernan, polled more than the quota. They were therefore elected on the first count. Their surplus votes were then distributed. The surplus is the candidate's vote minus the quota. Hutchins's surplus was thus 1,446,231 minus 536,533, or 909,698. These votes were distributed to whichever candidates received the no 2 votes on Hutchins's ballots.
After Hutchins's surplus votes were distributed, the count looked like this:
Votes Total after
distributed distribution
--------------------------------------------------------------------
HUTCHINS E 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 1
FAULKNER * 908,567 (99.9) 911,481 24.3 ELECTED 3
Forshaw * 196 (00.0) 1,060 00.0
Stephens 130 (00.0) 2,681 00.1
Oldfield 186 (00.0) 359,840 09.6 Burston 6 (00.0) 576 00.0 O'Regan 4 (00.0) 789 00.0
HEFFERNAN * E 1,371,578 36.5 ELECTED 2 Tierney * 13 (00.0) 1,454 00.0 Macdonald * 1 (00.0) 1,690 00.0 Fierravanti-Wells 1 (00.0) 856 00.0
Ridgeway 278 (00.0) 272,579 07.3 Baird 5 (00.0) 462 00.0 Reddy 3 (00.0) 2,166 00.1 Mendelssohn 4 (00.0) 813 00.0
Sutton 66 (00.0) 80,139 02.1
Moore 2 (00.0) 750 00.0
Rhiannon 1 (00.0) 250 00.0
Russell 0 542 00.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------
909,698 3,755,725
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It will be seen that virtually all of Hutchins's surplus votes went to Faulkner, the second candidate on the Labor ticket, and he was then elected. This is because all those voters who voted for the Labor party "above the line" had their second preferences automatically allocated to the second Labor candidate. All parties lodge a copy of their How-to-Vote Card with the Electoral Commission, and the Commission follows this card in allocating the preferences of those who vote "above the line." If a voter wished to vote, for example, Hutchins 1 and Heffernan 2, they would need to vote "below the line" by numbering each of the 69 candidates.
In the third count, Heffernan's surplus was distributed and these votes elected Tierney. Faulkner's surplus was then distributed, but these were insufficient to elect Forshaw. Likewise, Tierney's surplus was insufficient to elect McDonald.
After this stage of the count, the remaining candidates in contention (that is, the leading candidates in the major party tickets) were in the following position:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
HUTCHINS 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 1
FAULKNER * 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 3
Forshaw * 375,587 10.0
Oldfield 360,263 09.6
HEFFERNAN * 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 2
Tierney * 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 4
Macdonald * 300,313 08.0
Ridgeway 273,109 07.3
Sutton 80,186 02.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
3,755,725
--------------------------------------------------------------------
All the other candidates were then eliminated one by one, starting with the candidates with the smallest number of votes, and their votes were distributed among the candidates remaining in contention in accordance with the preferences expressed on their ballot papers. After this process was completed, the remaining candidates were in the following position:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
HUTCHINS 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 1
FAULKNER * 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 3
Forshaw * 450,446 12.0
Oldfield 402,154 10.7
HEFFERNAN * 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 2
Tierney * 536,533 14.3 ELECTED 4
Macdonald * 357,572 09.5
Ridgeway 286,157 07.6
Sutton 112,602 03.0
--------------------------------------------------------------------
3,755,725
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sutton was then eliminated. 80% of Sutton's preferences went to Ridgeway, giving Ridgeway more votes than McDonald. McDonald was then eliminated, and 93% of his preferences went to Ridgeway, thus giving him a quota and the fifth Senate seat. Ridgeway's surplus was then distributed, and 96% of his votes went to Forshaw, thus giving him a quota and the sixth seat. Oldfield was the last remaining unsuccessful candidate.
A final point needs to be explained. It was noted above that when a candidate polls more votes than the quota, their suplus vote is distributed to other candidates. Thus, in the example given above, Hutchins's surplus was 909,698, or 1,446,231 (his primary vote) minus 536,533 (the quota). It may be asked: which 909,698 of Hutchins's 1,446,231 primary votes are distributed? Are they chosen at random from among his votes? In fact they are all distributed, but at less than their full value. Since 909,698 is 62.9% of 1,446,231, each of Hutchins's votes is transferred to other candidates as 62.9% of a vote: each vote is said to have a transfer value of 0.629. This avoids any possibility of an unrepresentative sample of his votes being transferred. After each count the candidate's progressive total is rounded down to the nearest whole number. This means that a small number of votes are lost by fractionation in the final count.
When a person is appointed Divisional Returning Officer for a seat, his electoral enrolment will be transferred from the electorate where he lives to the one he administers. Normally he will be precluded from voting at an election, but instead will have two special powers; these are:
1. If during the count there are two candidates with equal lowest votes, he can decide which will be excluded.
2. If at the end of the count the two candidates left have an equal number of votes, he will get to vote in the election by giving a casting vote to the candidate he prefers. This is his personal vote, just like any other elector's, and is awarded at his sole discretion.
[edit] Casual vacancies
If a senator's seat becomes vacant mid-term, whether through resignation, death or some other possible reasons, the parliament of the relevant state or the legislative assembly of the relevant territory chooses a replacement senator. Further details are at Casual vacancy (Australian Parliament).
[edit] Double Dissolutions
Under the Australian Constitution, the House of Representatives and the Senate generally have equal legislative powers (the only exception being that appropriation (money) bills must originate in the House of Representatives). This means that a government formed in the House of Representatives can be seriously frustrated by a Senate majority determined to reject its legislation.
In these circumstances, Section 57 of the Constitution allows the governor-general to dissolve the House of Representatives and the entire Senate – this is called a "double dissolution" – and issue writs for an election in which every seat in the Parliament is contested.
Section 57 provides:
If the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.
Section 57 also provides that if, after a double dissolution, the Senate again rejects the bill or bills that were the subject of the dissolution, the governor-general may convene a joint sitting of the two houses to consider the bill or bills, and any amendments which have been previously proposed in either house. At a joint sitting, the members of both houses vote as one body upon bills and amendments; and if, at the joint sitting, a bill or an amendment is accepted by an absolute majority of the total membership of the House and Senate put together, it is treated as though it had been passed separately by both houses, and is presented for Royal Assent.
There were double dissolutions in 1914, 1951, 1974, 1975, 1983 and 1987. However, the 1974 Joint Sitting is so far the only one held pursuant to Section 57 [6].
The following table is a summary of the relevant details:
-
Date of
Double DissolutionDate of Election Governor-General Prime Minister Leader of the Opposition Outcome 30 July 1914 5 September 1914 Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson Joseph Cook Andrew Fisher The Cook Commonwealth Liberal Party government was defeated by Andrew Fisher's Australian Labor Party. 19 March 1951 28 April 1951 Sir William McKell Robert Menzies Ben Chifley The Menzies Liberal-Country Party coalition government was opposed by Chifley's Labor Party, but was returned with a majority in both houses. 11 April 1974 18 May 1974 Sir Paul Hasluck Gough Whitlam Billy Snedden The Whitlam Labor government was returned, but still without a majority in the Senate. The bills were reintroduced and again rejected by the coalition-controlled Senate. Sir Paul Hasluck's term ended on 11 July and the new Governor-General Sir John Kerr approved Whitlam's request for a joint sitting, held on 6-7 August 1974, at which all the bills were passed. 11 November 1975 13 December 1975 Sir John Kerr Malcolm Fraser (caretaker) Gough Whitlam Fraser, who, as Leader of the Liberal-Country coalition Opposition, had opposed the bills, had been appointed caretaker Prime Minister in extraordinary circumstances following Kerr's dismissal of the Whitlam government. The Fraser caretaker government did not have the confidence of the lower house, however the parliament was dissolved a few hours after his appointment. At the election, the Fraser government was elected in its own right. 3 February 1983 5 March 1983 Sir Ninian Stephen Malcolm Fraser Bob Hawke The Fraser coalition government was defeated by the Labor opposition led by Bob Hawke. 5 June 1987 11 July 1987 Sir Ninian Stephen Bob Hawke John Howard The Hawke government was returned, but still without a Senate majority. The Australia Card bill was reintroduced and again rejected by the Senate. Hawke planned to hold a joint sitting, but a retired public servant Ewart Smith (1920-1991) pointed out that the Australia Card bill was unworkable due to technicalities in its wording. Even if it had been passed, it could not have been implemented[7][8]. After acknowledging this, Hawke decided not to proceed with the joint sitting, and the Australia Card bill was abandoned.
[edit] Nominations
Candidates for either House must formally nominate with the Electoral Commission. The signature of the Registered Officer of a party registered under the Electoral Act is required for a party-endorsed candidate. A registered party must have at least 500 members. Fifty signatures of eligible voters are required for an independent candidate. A deposit of $500 is required for a candidate for the House, and $1000 for a candidate for the Senate; this deposit is refunded if the candidate or group gains 4% of the first preference votes. To receive public funding, a party or candidate must receive at least 4% of the vote.[9]
[edit] References
- ^ Scott Bennett and Rob Lundie, 'Australian Electoral Systems', Research Paper no. 5 2007-08, Department of the Parliamentary Library, Canberra.
- ^ Scott Bennett, Compulsory voting in Australian national elections, Research Brief no. 6 2005-06, Department of the Parliamentary Library, Canberra.
- ^ Matt Rosenberg, Compulsory Voting, About.com: geography, retrieved September 2007.
- ^ What happens if I do not vote?. Voting within Australia – Frequently Asked Questions. Australian Electoral Commission. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.
- ^ Australian Electoral Commission, Electoral Pocketbook, Australian Electoral Commission, Canberra, June 2006, pp. 71-77, retrieved September 2007.
- ^ Note that joint sittings have sometimes occurred under different circumstances that have nothing to do with Section 57. For example, see Casual Senate vacancies in the representation of the Territories.
- ^ University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law: Lessons from the Australia Card -- deux ex machina ?
- ^ University of Wollongong – The Australia Card
- ^ Nominations. Australian Electoral Commission. Retrieved on 2007-12-15.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Parliament of Australia
- The Australian Electoral Commission
- Adam Carr's Australian Election Archive
- The Australian Labor Party
- The Australian Greens
- The Australian Democrats
- The Liberal Party of Australia
- The National Party of Australia
- Proportional Representation Society of Australia
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