Democratic Alternative
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Constitutional Convention Democratic Alternative
Information Service:
Constitutional Convention
The Voting System
For the Constitutional Convention election, voters have a choice of
I have attempted to provide some tips and tricks for both methods below, but for the best explanation of this proportional-representation system and how preferences work, go straight to the expert. Constitutional lawyer John Pyke has worked with the PR system for many years and is a strong advocate of its use for almost all elections - not just the Senate as is usually the case. Check his excellent article entitled
When you vote above the line, you are giving your vote to one candidate, and giving that candidate the right to distribute preferences on your behalf. This means it is very likely that your vote, or part of it, will be credited to the account of someone else, for whom you did not vote. On the other hand, if your chosen candidate did not distribute preferences, your vote may end up having no real effect - being "wasted".
(In fairness it must be pointed out that some candidates, particularly in the country, did not really have the opportunity to submit a preference ticket, due to the ridiculously short time - 24 hours - allowed for candidates to do their homework and submit a ticket)
If you vote above the line, you should check the preference allocation of your chosen candidate, to find out who you are really voting for. Preference allocations are summarised in the candidate information, accessible via the candidate list or candidate index.
Further information:
In a Senate election, you can run through all the candidates and express your preferences. If you do this, you give yourself the best chance of making a difference, if two candidates are slugging it out for the final seat on the plane to Canberra.
In this election, you're limited to 13 preferences - and note that they are preferences, from 1 to 13. You are not giving 13 equal votes to your chosen candidates. This is a difficult concept to grasp - the fact that 13 candidates will be elected does not mean the Electoral Commission had to give you 13 boxes to fill in. It could just as easily have been 12, or 14, or 35, or even the full field of 129. But they settled for 13, so you will have to leave at least 116 candidates out, if you vote below the line.
Because you are limited to 13 votes, it's pretty likely that you won't be helping to decide between the final electable monarchist and the final electable republican, when they are fighting for the 13th place. If neither of them is on your list, you're out of it. If one of them happens to be on your list, you might make a difference, depending on how many people you've already helped to elect.
Whatever you do, if you vote below the line, please vote for 13 people - no less. If you only write one number, then that's the limit of your vote. If that person doesn't make it, there's no way your vote can help elect anyone else.
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Ross Garrad, 13 November 1997