Not my election thank God

[hnpcc]

This is just bizarre.

How hard is it to do this kind of shit?!?!

Compare this to the Victorian Senate ballot (probably the most confusing of the Australian ballot papers), which is still easier to follow.

Honestly, up until I was in the US during the 2000 Election I seriously thought they just ticked boxes. Which would be easier, when all's said and done. I really thought voting machines were SF. Bizarre.

Still, it was interesting seeing the different elections close up. Quite often you don't realise what you're assuming until you see how different it all is.

Comments

[dalmeny]

That's just amazing. How do they get away with it?

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I have to admit the most interesting thing about this is I don't understand what the flaw on that ballot means. On the other hand just looking at all the stuff on that foreign ballot makes me happy that ours aren't like that.

[hnpcc]

AFAICS if you tick the arrow pointing to John Kerry you're actually voting for George W.

Boxes are so much easier. So is scribbling out all the other candidates names and only leaving the one you want. No mistaken preferences then.

But they'd probably go through a few more boxes of pens... ;-)

[epideme.livejournal.com]

AFAICS if you tick the arrow pointing to John Kerry you're actually voting for George W.

But then if you actually want to vote for Bush, you are screwed as well. Apparantly (from reading to the end of the thread) this was only sent to just under 70 people, but that really isn't the point.

One wonders from the Victorian senate paper, just how they do the counting! Do you spoil your ballot if you make a mistake in counting and would anyone notice?

I like the PR system of voting, but I also like the fact that in England all you have to do is put an X in 1 box. I also found the "Straight Party Ticket" and "Vote for not more than one(1)" terminology confusing. Wouldn't "Vote for only one, or tear up the paper" be better? At the very least finish with "...1 (one)".

[hnpcc]

Yes, if you accidentally put two people as 39 and no one as 40 it's an invalid vote.

It didn't used to be, but Albert Langer pointed out the loophole (being able to put multiple people last) and they changed it.

The site I linked to is to explain what order exactly you are putting candidates if you only do a single party above the line vote. You have the choice of putting a one in one party box above the line, or numbering all 65 boxes below the line. If you put a one in the party box, you elect to follow the preferences they decide. I tend to number all 65, mostly for entertainment, unless I'm running late in which case I do the one number box thing.

The House of Reps vote is just preferential, but there's only 7 of them in my electorate (and the largest number of candidates standing is 10, in McMillan IIRC). Anyone can get 1 through 10 right surely. 1 through 65 I can sort of see the problem. But it's still fun. :-)

As to the counting: my understanding is that they sort them firstly into one party and independent votes, then start counting. It takes longer, mostly cos there's so many of them - but most people just tick either Labor, Liberal, Green or Democrat so I guess that narrows it down a bit. Well they USED to tick Democrat - now it's probably a bit of a toss up between them and Family First (One Notion is still marginal in Melbourne at least, although it was doing better in rural areas).

I dunno, I don't find it that confusing, but given the ads they're re-airing about how to vote I may be in the minority. ;-)

[epideme.livejournal.com]

Yes, if you accidentally put two people as 39 and no one as 40 it's an invalid vote.<\i>

I found the answer here.

Up to three sequencing errors are allowed on your ballot paper before your vote becomes informal.

What I didn't realise that you can vote above and below the line, so if your below the line vote is screwed, then your above the line vote counts. Still my original statement still stands: How on earth do they count all the votes? (http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/howtovote.htm) ()

[hnpcc]

Heh, I'm so a mol bio person - "up to three sequencing errors": that'd be a G, a C and an A then..? :-)

With the counting, as I understand it all the votes are sorted into piles of the first preference (i.e. everyone who voted 1 for the first liberal candidate goes in one pile, everyone who voted 1 for the first dem candidate goes in another etc). The smallest pile then gets redistributed by the second preference on those ballots. And so forth until you're left with the required numbers of piles for the positions available.

I agree, it'd be a bloody huge amount of work with 65 candidates... which may well be why only 2% of Victorians reportedly numbered all the boxes.

With the above the line, you agree to your preferences being distributed according to how the party you've selected distributes them (that was in that link). So if you put 1 for the first Socialist Alliance candidate, your second preference automatically becomes the second SA candidate, your third Richard Frankland and your fourth Peter Phelps, and so forth down to your 65th being James Heary of One Nation.

Who knew the SA were supporting Stingers? ;-)

[At least that's how we did it in high school when we ran the SRC elections. Who knows, maybe the AEC do things differently, I dunno. :-)]

[hnpcc]

Yes, if you accidentally put two people as 39 and no one as 40 it's an invalid vote.

Actually from the site you linked to, I think I was right:

If you duplicate a number on the ballot paper, your vote will be informal and will not count. There is a theory that does the rounds saying you can deny the major parties your preferences by voting 1,2,2,.... This is not correct. If you duplicate any number, your vote will not count and be placed in the informal pile. It may be grossly undemocratic, but if you want to cast a valid vote, you are going to have to provide a valid sequence of numbers for every candidate, numbering from 1 to however many candidates there are on the ballot paper. If you make a numbering error, go back to the polling officials and get another ballot paper.

So you can't have numbering errors as far as I can see. Which makes his later bit about "three sequencing errors" kind of odd. Why can you have three with a large number of candidates but none with the house vote - surely if you can put 39, 39, 39 and still have the vote be counted you should be able to put 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 100 and have it be counted. The intention is obvious at least, so AFAICS it should be counted.

I did like this comment though:

Can I write on the ballot paper?
Yes, but remember this, the only people who see the ballot papers are the people who count the votes. If you are trying to send a message to John Howard or Mark Latham, they will never see it. But feel free to express yourself if it makes you feel better.

Heh. "Die Politician Scum Die"... ;-)

[epideme.livejournal.com]

You cannot have any errors in the House of Reps ballot, but you can have 3 errors on the Senate ballot.

It comes down to this:

In the reps vote you need over 50% preference to win. If incorrect sequence numbers were allowed, then you could end up with the position that neither of the last 2 remaining parties have over 50%.

In the senate vote, not all the votes cast need to be counted. Each elected candidate needs a quota of votes, so after the final candidate is elected, there should be just under the quota of votes left over. For every sequencing error, this number of left over votes is reduced by 1.

From what I now understand, every below the line vote has to be checked to see if it is formal, before it is counted.

This part of the site (http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/guide/senatevotingsystem.htm) explains the senate counting procedure. It gets scary at the end when the votes have been counted 156 times before the last senator is elected.