tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/microparties-6989/articlesMicroparties – The Conversation2016-02-22T23:39:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/551282016-02-22T23:39:04Z2016-02-22T23:39:04ZExplainer: what changes to the Senate voting system are being proposed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112300/original/image-20160222-25879-drf1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The government's changes to the Senate voting system will almost certainly pass with the support of the Greens and Nick Xenophon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labor has announced <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/22/malcolm-turnbull-moves-to-overhaul-senate-voting-system-before-election">it will oppose</a> the government’s <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/2016-02-22_cwth_electoral_amendment_bill_2016.pdf">proposed changes</a> to the way Australians elect their senators. Labor’s opposition is almost certainly moot, however, as the government has the support of the <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/history.htm#CWTH_5_campaigns">Greens</a> and independent senator <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/senate-reform-could-boost-nick-xenophon-kill-off-minor-parties/news-story/0d9d44c77f301498ef250eb767d2b4b0">Nick Xenophon</a> to pass its legislation in the upper house.</p>
<p>Introducing the proposal on Monday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/2013_General_Election/Final_Report">unanimous recommendations</a> on changes to the Senate voting system. This made it seem like the government was adopting all of them. </p>
<p>However, one of the committee’s most important recommendations – for optional preferential voting below the line – was ignored. So, the government’s proposed changes do not match <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2016-02-22/joint-media-release-senate-voting-reform">Turnbull’s statement</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the outcomes will reflect faithfully what each and every voter intends as they exercise their democratic choice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, what are the changes? And how will they affect us as voters?</p>
<h2>What are the changes?</h2>
<p>For the <a href="http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/SenateUseOfGvtByState-17496.htm">nearly half a million Australians</a> who vote below the line – ranking candidates as well as parties – there is just a tiny token improvement: increasing allowable mistakes from three to five, but only “as long as 90% of the ballot paper below the line is filled in correctly”. </p>
<p>In other words, voters will still have to mark all the numbers and hope they don’t make too many mistakes.</p>
<p>There is significant change for those voting above the line. Currently, when you vote “1” in your chosen party’s box, you are voting for its candidates in the order that the party decided, and then your preferences go to all the other candidates as the party has decided. This system used <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/history.htm#gvt">“group voting tickets”</a>, which list a preference order for all candidates.</p>
<p>Under the government’s proposed changes, if you vote “1” above the line, your vote will only go to that party’s candidates. No preferences will be transferred to other candidates. </p>
<p>Voters will be told to preference at least six blocks of candidates (party groups), numbering at least 1 to 6 above the line. This means voters – rather than the parties – will now choose which parties they wish to preference.</p>
<p>But the government realised that far too many voters would just vote “1” – as most have for decades. So, it has proposed a “savings provision”, which will make your ballot formal – meaning it can be counted – even if you just vote “1” above the line. If you do this, your vote will be transferred only to candidates of the party you have voted “1” for. </p>
<p>If that party has insufficient votes, your vote will become “exhausted” and cannot be transferred further.</p>
<h2>Do the changes benefit voters?</h2>
<p>The 2013 federal election results <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2013-senate-contest-australia-lurches-to-the-right-17535">raised concerns</a> over just how “microparty” candidates were elected with very few first preference votes. They did gain enough support for election, but that was by preferences. Those preferences were mostly via the group voting tickets.</p>
<p>It was argued that many of those voters for candidates of small parties – for example the Animal Justice Party in Victoria – might not have wanted their preferences to proceed to elect the Motoring Enthusiasts’ Ricky Muir, but they nevertheless did. That would have been proper if the voters themselves had preferenced the Motoring Enthusiasts candidates, but it was the party lodging the group voting ticket that actually made the decision. </p>
<p>The proposed removal of group voting tickets is an improvement, but it could have been so much more. </p>
<p>The fairest way of overcoming this perceived problem is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/trusting-the-voters-to-decide-their-preferences-should-guide-senate-reform-48084">trust the voters</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>to decide who gets their first preference and all their subsequent preferences; and</p></li>
<li><p>to let them decide how many further preferences they give.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But the government’s changes don’t do that, and still perpetuate a very discriminatory difference between below-the-line and above-the-line voters. </p>
<p>Below-the-line voters have to mark virtually all the boxes, sometimes as many as 115 or even more, expressing preferences for virtually all candidates. Above-the-line voters are asked only to mark six boxes, and their vote will count even if they mark only one. </p>
<p>That doesn’t meet a standard for an electoral system voters can be confident in. How genuine is a reform declaring a particular numbering as formal if expressed above the line, but informal if written out below the line?</p>
<p>Australia’s Constitution <a href="http://www3.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/coaca430/xx7.html">requires federal MPs</a> be “directly chosen by the people”. This was intended to mean that voters must choose the individuals that will represent them. For the Senate, the only way for all voters to do that is to vote below the line.</p>
<p>Under the new rules voters are still significantly discriminated against if they want to “directly” choose the candidates. These voters still have a much higher formality requirement than those voting above the line, choosing party groups. A candidate might again ask the High Court – more probingly than it was asked <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1984/75.html">in 1984</a> – to decide whether that still meets the constitutional requirement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Morey is the honorary National Secretary of the Proportional Representation Society of Australia. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council for research on the Tangsa Naga languages of Northeast India and Northwest Myanmar. </span></em></p>What are the government’s proposed changes to the way the Senate is elected? And how will they affect us as voters?Stephen Morey, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Linguistics, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/550272016-02-22T01:01:42Z2016-02-22T01:01:42ZSenate voting reform: keep it simple, or too many people’s votes won’t be counted<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112102/original/image-20160219-1274-3u7d86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senate elections can give parties other than Labor, Liberal and National a chance of winning a seat.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Turnbull government has unveiled <a href="https://twitter.com/political_alert/status/701559911428132865">sweeping changes</a> to how Australians vote for their senators ahead of this year’s federal election.</p>
<p>If passed, the government’s proposal would allow voters to cast at least six preferences above the black line on their Senate ballot paper, rather than requiring voters to fill in all boxes below the line. It would abolish controversial <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/voting/electoral-system/senate-group-voting-tickets">“group voting tickets”</a>.</p>
<p>The Senate voting system is already very complicated. It is by no means certain that voters understand the intricate details of how the transferable vote system, which is at the heart of how the Senate is elected, works.</p>
<p>This is evident in the slightly mischievous claims about candidates such as Ricky Muir winning Senate seats with paltry primary votes. Muir’s <a href="http://results.aec.gov.au/17496/Website/External/SenateStateDop-17496-VIC.pdf">share of the primary vote</a> in 2013 was not great, but it was quite a lot more than that won by the second-placed Liberal and Labor candidates on their respective party tickets.</p>
<h2>Evolution of the Senate voting system</h2>
<p>Since its introduction in time for the 1949 election, one of the outward signs of the Senate voting system’s complexity was the regularity with which rates of informal voting <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/voting/informal/senate-statistics">reached or even exceeded 10%</a>.</p>
<p>Reflecting on the <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/voting/elections/1974-federal">1974 double-dissolution election</a>, Colin Hughes – later chief electoral commissioner – <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/86085742/australia-at-the-polls-the-national-elections-of">reported on</a> the relationship between the high informal vote and the number of candidates on the ballot paper, the lack of any party identifier with those candidates, and the requirement that voters cast a numerically ordered preference for each of those candidates. </p>
<p>Hughes also noted that scrutineers had reported to him that the vast majority of informal votes cast in NSW in particular had been voters who had given their primary vote to the Labor candidate. Had those votes counted, he argued, Labor would have won an additional seat – an outcome that might have avoided the onset of the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411587.htm">1975 constitutional crisis</a>.</p>
<p>Labor <a href="http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2015/09/the-orogins-of-senate-group-ticket-voting-and-it-wasnt-the-major-parties.html">reformed the Senate voting system</a> in 1983 when it returned to government. Party identifiers were now included on ballot papers. </p>
<p>Voters could also now cast a single preference above a thick black line. In so doing, the ballot would be assumed to correspond with the allocation of preferences as determined by that party as lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission – known as <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/voting/electoral-system/senate-group-voting-tickets">group voting tickets</a>.</p>
<p>More than 90% of Australians now <a href="http://www.tallyroom.com.au/27224">vote this way</a> in the Senate. The informal vote has dramatically declined from an average of nearly 10% to being regularly <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/voting/informal/senate-statistics">less than 3%</a>.</p>
<p>But these achievements have been overwhelmed by the controversies the group voting ticket system has also been responsible for. These controversies have arisen over the representational outcomes that have occurred since the system was introduced. These in turn have always been precipitated by the fate of political parties other than Labor, Liberal and National. </p>
<p>Group voting tickets have given all political parties’ organisational wings the chance to participate in the wheeling and dealing of preference allocations. These deals have had real impact. Part of the reason the Australian Democrats <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/18/1095394062567.html?from=storylhs">declined as a presence</a> in the Senate was due to Labor placing it behind other parties – such as the Greens – in its group voting ticket. </p>
<p>In 1984, Labor was able to cruel Peter Garrett’s first attempt at a parliamentary career when it <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/05/12/common-sense-prevails-in-senate-preferential-voting-changes/?wpmp_switcher=mobile">preferenced against</a> Garrett’s Nuclear Disarmament Party. In 1998, all the major parties <a href="https://theconversation.com/hanson-gets-the-band-back-together-can-she-make-an-impact-34747">preferenced against</a> Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.</p>
<p>In 2004, Labor in Victoria <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/10/1097406425742.html">preferred Family First</a> to the Greens. This helped Family First’s Steve Fielding secure a Senate seat despite gaining less than 2% of the primary vote.</p>
<h2>What’s happened recently?</h2>
<p>In 2013, while the Liberal and National parties enjoyed a strong swing in the House of Representatives and were on track to secure a large majority, they did not fare <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2013-senate-contest-australia-lurches-to-the-right-17535">quite so well</a> in the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/">upper house</a>. </p>
<p>The biggest swing in the Senate vote was to the raft of tickets and candidates other than the main parties – a group dubbed the “microparties”. But this vote was spread out over multiple parties; few won a primary vote of more than 2%. Most won less than 1%.</p>
<p>In a lower house contest, such a paltry vote would not translate into winning seats. The Senate electoral system, however, is a proportional system that utilises the transferable vote. This means a ballot may be counted for its primary value, then for its “surplus” value, and then for its value as a preference. </p>
<p>Thus, Senate elections can give parties other than Labor, Liberal and National a chance of winning a seat.</p>
<h2>What might change mean?</h2>
<p>The presence of parties like the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party in the Senate following the 2013 election appears to have been the last straw for critics of the group voting ticket system. </p>
<p>Change – justified on the grounds that there is something not quite right about such extensive microparty representation and so something needs to be done to curb it – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/12/senate-voting-changes-coalition-wins-over-nick-xenophon-and-greens">was negotiated</a> by the Coalition, independent senator Nick Xenophon and the Greens.</p>
<p>This signals that the Greens now see themselves as part of the mainstream party system. It appears to assume that Green candidates will still get elected even if the flow of Labor surplus guaranteed under the present system – provided Labor chooses to preference the Greens – will be denied under the proposed changes.</p>
<p>If the government’s changes are passed, a leap in the informal voting rate will occur. <a href="http://aec.gov.au/About_AEC/research/paper10/index.htm">Research into informal voting</a> by the Australian Electoral Commission notes the relationship between rising rates of informal voting and complexities in a voting system. The system will thus go back to disenfranchising voters (most likely from lower socioeconomic backgrounds) in ways that it did prior to the Hawke government’s 1983 reforms.</p>
<p>There are better ways to mitigate the power of the party secretariats in the preference wheeling-and-dealing process. In <a href="https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/Voting/StateElections.html">Victoria’s upper house</a>, voters can still vote for a group voting ticket or they can give as few as five preferences below the black line. </p>
<p>This doesn’t completely do away with the group voting ticket. But it does try to give voters a viable option to go their own way by reducing the complexity of voting below the line.</p>
<p>Victoria enfranchises voters by simplifying the system. It is a good principle. It ought to be applied to the federal sphere as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Economou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Those who do understand the Senate voting system have the potential to wield some influence both in its conduct and in debates about how it might be reformed.Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175352013-10-03T05:55:50Z2013-10-03T05:55:50ZThe 2013 Senate contest: Australia lurches to the right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32376/original/dwd74znr-1380775829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The new Senate will be dominated by an expanding crossbench of minor and microparty members.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the official count of the Senate now completed, the implications of the contest and what it says about the mindset of the Australian body politic may now proceed.</p>
<p>The key consequences of the half-Senate election are as follows. First, the collective left-of-centre majority (that is, Labor and the Greens) that had been in place since July 1, 2011, will not apply after the new Senate is sworn-in on July 1, 2014. While both Labor and the Greens suffered swings against them in this election, the Greens were able to offset the loss of sitting senator Scott Ludlam in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/wa/">Western Australia</a> (pending a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-02/palmer-united-candidate-to-represent-wa-in-senate/4993888">request for a recount</a> at the time of writing) with a gain of a seat in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/vic/">Victoria</a>.</p>
<p>The real loser in the 2013 Senate contest has been the Australian Labor Party. In three states Labor failed to win a sufficient vote to secure two quotas (that is, two seats), and in South Australia Labor managed to win only one seat. Compared with its 2007 result, Labor also lost seats in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales. Labor’s national vote in the Senate was <a href="http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenateStateFirstPrefsByGroup-17496-NAT.htm">30.1%</a> - a swing against its 2010 result of over 5%.</p>
<p>However, Labor has not been the only major party to lose ground in this election. The Coalition has also suffered a net loss of a Senate position as a consequence of the failure of Helen Kroger to defend her seat in Victoria. These losses of both Labor and Coalition seats reflects the fact that with a combined primary vote of 67.7%, this is the worst performance the three major parties – Labor, Liberal and National – have had in Senate contests since the introduction of proportional representation in 1949.</p>
<p>The big winners in the 2013 contest have been the so-called “microparties”. The roll call of party representation in the Senate after July 1, 2014, will include the Palmer United Party (PUP) with three senators, the Liberal Democratic Party (one senator), the Family First Party (one senator), the Democratic Labor Party (one senator elected in 2010), as well as a senator from the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party (AMEP) from Victoria. This is the outcome that has caused the most gnashing of teeth across the land.</p>
<p>Also in this crossbench formation will be <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/results/senate/sa/">South Australian</a> independent Nick Xenophon, whose ticket polled so strongly (24.8%) that it nearly won a second position. As it turned out, Green preferences sent Sarah Hanson-Young’s surplus to Family First, thus enabling that party to beat the Xenophon ticket’s Stirling Griff to the last available seat.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32374/original/fjxqb8yd-1380775003.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Table 1: 2013 Senate result on primary vote % by state and party.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This table includes 5% of the vote going to the Nationals, running on a separate ticket in Western Australia.</p>
<p>At one level these results appear to be deviant outcomes and suggest a problem with the Senate voting system. This is especially so when the election of Ricky Muir from the AMEP could occur even though he polled a mere 0.5% of the primary vote. </p>
<p>An account of the election of this group of candidates is possible, however, and is founded on three important facts that can be gleaned from data contained in the table above. First, the primary vote for the main parties (Labor, Coalition and Greens) was so weak in this election that they could not share the available seats between themselves in each state. Second, the total vote for all parties and candidates other than Labor, Coalition, and the Greens in every state was strong enough to achieve a full quota (or near enough to a full quota) and thus be entitled to a seat. </p>
<p>Finally, the parties outside the of the Labor-Coalition-Greens group ensured that one of their number would win a seat by directing preferences to each other, as is allowed under the Group Ticket Vote (that is, the “above the line”) voting system.</p>
<p>Accordingly, certain microparties figured as important influences on the outcome over which of their number would secure a seat. The success of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in NSW and the PUP in Queensland was based on the respective parties securing a very strong primary vote (9.5% and 9.9% respectively), but the process was completed by the flow of preferences - especially from the Sex Party. </p>
<p>The Sex Party also played important roles in channelling preferences to the PUP (in Tasmania) and to Muir and the AMEP in Victoria. The Sex Party may not have won any seats with a national vote of 1.4%, but its preferences have been crucial in a host of outcomes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32381/original/s6jhm8v7-1380777283.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greens senator Scott Ludlam has lost his WA seat after an extremely tight count, but is seeking a recount.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those alarmed and appalled by this result are already lining up to target the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-solve-a-problem-like-the-senate-18042">voting system for blame</a>, but the proportional system used for the Senate does give a good insight into the political inclinations of the community that usually get obscured in the single member, majority voting system used in the House of Representatives where the major parties still win seats despite falling primary support. </p>
<p>The 2013 Senate result indicates that nearly 10% of the Australian electorate was unhappy with Labor and the Greens, and re-aligned their support accordingly. By the same token, the negligible movement in the swing for the Coalition indicated the extent to which voters were also ambivalent about the major party alternative to Labor and the Greens. The biggest swings were to the so-called microparties, with the PUP (4.9% nationally) and the LDP (3.0% nationally) leading the way. What’s more, these parties sit to the right of the debate, either as a consequence of their social conservatism, their small government ethos and/or their populism.</p>
<p>All in all, it is the Liberal Party that probably has the strongest grounds for concern at the outcome. At issue here is the performance of the LDP. The LDP’s strongest state was NSW, where the party <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/detours-ahead-as-minor-parties-claim-senate-balance-20130908-2te36.html">drew the first position</a> on the massive Senate ballot paper and may have been advantaged by a “donkey” vote. </p>
<p>Of greater concern to the Liberal Party, however, was the classification of the LDP and anecdotal evidence that voters may have mistaken the LDP for the LNP. If this is the case, the LDP may have won a seat at the expense of the LNP.</p>
<p>It would seem that one consequence of the LDP result will be an attempt at strengthening the rules governing the formation and registration of political parties to discourage the proliferation of microparties. This is an outcome that would probably please the AEC as well, given the difficulty it had in fitting everyone on the Senate ballot paper. </p>
<p>To do this, the Abbott government will have to convince Labor and the Greens to vote with the Coalition to get the necessary bills through what looks like being a difficult Senate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Economou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the official count of the Senate now completed, the implications of the contest and what it says about the mindset of the Australian body politic may now proceed. The key consequences of the half-Senate…Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177682013-09-05T04:06:04Z2013-09-05T04:06:04ZExplainer: how does the Senate voting system work?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30597/original/q555btf6-1378185791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Preference deals and a propensity for people to vote 'above the line' gives microparties like Rise Up Australia a greater chance of being elected to the Senate</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Julian Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The record <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/metrelong-ballot-paper-means-voters-will-need-to-read-the-fine-print-20130817-2s3yw.html">large Senate ballot papers</a> have probably already annoyed many early voters. Their great length - over a metre in NSW and Victoria – will soon annoy many more voters. However, the real annoyance will come if new senators with very little popular support get elected.</p>
<p>The reason why this might happen is a distortion of the Proportional Representation system, where, by voting “above the line”, it is the party - not the voter - that decides the preferences.</p>
<p>In this election, more than ever before, large numbers of parties that we have never heard of are on the ballot paper. Preference deal strategies might even lead to some of them getting elected. <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/10/1097406425742.html">Back in 2004</a>, Labor and Australian Democrat preferences in Victoria went to Family First ahead of the Greens. Almost no Labor or Democrat voters knew this when they voted above the line, but this led to Family First’s Steve Fielding’s election to the Senate.</p>
<p>This can happens because the above the line option - where the preferences are decided by the party you vote for, not by you the voter - was introduced for Senate polls in 1983. These preferences are listed in the <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/history.htm#gvt">Group Voting Tickets</a>.</p>
<p>You can find out what the party you plan to vote for is doing with its preferences by looking at the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/election/vic/gvt.htm">website</a> or by checking the Group Voting Tickets at the polling booth. However, most people don’t look at them, and even those that want to might find it confusing, given that - in Victoria, for instance - there are 39 different parties and one group of independents on the ballot paper.</p>
<p>The reason for the explosion in the number of parties – something that will continue if there is no reform – is that the smaller parties can make deals with each other. With a very tiny percentage of first preference votes, it is possible that one of them can get elected to the Senate by picking up the preferences of voters that are not aware of where their preferences are going.</p>
<p>This is how it might happen in Victoria. Suppose the results in the Senate in Victoria was something like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lib/Nat 37%</p>
<p>ALP 37%</p>
<p>Green 10%</p>
<p>Others 16%</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Senate voting works on a quota system, and with six senators to be elected, the quota is around 14.3%. By these figures, the Liberal/National Coalition and Labor safely win two quotas - and two senators - each. After their two quotas (28.6%) are used up, they have a surplus of 8.4%.</p>
<p>What happens next is that the candidate with the least number of votes is excluded and then next least and so on. Let’s say that there are 25 <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/microparties-may-help-family-first-win-seat-20130829-2stmy.html">“microparties”</a> all with an average of 0.4% of the first preference vote, which totals to 10% overall. And let’s say that some of the minor parties like the <a href="http://palmerunited.com/">Palmer United Party</a>, the <a href="http://www.sexparty.org.au/">Sex Party</a> and <a href="http://familyfirst.org.au/">Family First</a> get around 2% each.</p>
<p>Now we know that many of these microparties have done deals with each other – and by the exchange of these preferences, one of them – maybe the <a href="http://riseupaustraliaparty.com/">Rise Up Australia</a>, or <a href="http://smokersrights.org.au/">Smokers Rights</a>, or <a href="http://www.climate-sceptics.com.au/">No Carbon Tax</a>, - might manage, after all the tiny parties’ preferences are distributed, to get around 6% of the vote after preferences. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/30598/original/cmtpyb8g-1378186161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">97 candidates are vying for only six Senate seats in Victoria alone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These parties can then pick up the preferences of the more serious minor parties, like the Palmer United Party or Family First or the Sex Party, and that might bring them up to around 9% of the vote. They would then be in front of the surplus of the major parties. Quite understandably, the Coalition <a href="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/coalition-fears-voter-confusion/story-e6frfkp9-1226708617589">have preferenced</a> some of these microparties in front of the Greens and Labor.</p>
<p>There are methods voters can implement to stop this, beginning with checking the group voting ticket for your state. This will show you where your preferences will go. Alternatively you can vote below the line, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/svic/?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=Corp_News-Elections-Federal-2013_AdWords_:victoria%20senate%20candidates%202013_b_g_34079091559_&gclid=CLv187HCrrkCFYkipQodbzQA_g">1 to 97</a> in Victoria. As a safety mechanism you can put a 1 above the line in the box belonging to the party of your choice, and that will be counted only if you make a mistake below the line.</p>
<p>In the long term, we need to change the rules of elections. This should be done by first abolishing above the line voting and the Group Voting Tickets. In its place, Partial Optional Preferential voting below the line should be introduced. Voters then only have to vote for as many candidates as there are positions to be filled for your vote to be formal. </p>
<p>Partial Optional Preferential already occurs in Tasmanian lower house elections, and is an option in the Victorian upper house. <a href="http://www.prsa.org.au/history.htm#CommonwealthE">Full preferential voting</a> dates only from 1934. And finally, the requirement for formality should be relaxed so that any sequential numbers above the minimum would be counted even if an error is made.</p>
<p>The effect of this would be that it was no longer worthwhile for the microparties to set up and deal in preferences. We would see an immediate reduction in the number of parties - maybe from 40 down to about 10 in Victoria - and those that are standing would all be genuine candidates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Morey is affiliated with the Proportional Representation Society of Australia (Victoria-Tasmania) Inc. He is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, based at La Trobe University, studying less described languages in Northeast India
In writing this article, I have been assisted by other members of the PRSAV-T, Dr. Lee Naish and Mr. Geoffrey Goode.</span></em></p>The record large Senate ballot papers have probably already annoyed many early voters. Their great length - over a metre in NSW and Victoria – will soon annoy many more voters. However, the real annoyance…Stephen Morey, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Linguistics, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.