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PROPORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF |
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Tel +613 9589 1802 |
Tel +61429176725 |
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BEAUMARIS VIC 3193 |
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2020-08-24 |
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The ‘How-to-vote’ Cards used in Australian elections |
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Introduction: The first jurisdiction in
Australia to legislate for all of the seats in at least one of its Houses to
be elected by a modern preferential voting system was Tasmania, when
Tasmania's Electoral Act 1907
extended, to the whole State, the use of the Hare-Clark
quota-preferential system of proportional representation in multi-member
electoral districts that had been used, since 1896, just
for the election of the members of the House of Assembly for Hobart and
Launceston. That Act also substituted preferential voting for the first-past-the-post
voting that had, until then, been used for Legislative Council elections. Tasmanians
have long valued the real choice that Hare-Clark gives, and that seems to
have prevented 'How-to-Vote' cards
from gaining the foothold they have on the mainland, which accepted them when preferential voting spread there around
1919 to prevent the two conservative parties - the urban Nationalist Party
and the rural Country Party - splitting the conservative vote, particularly
in the State-wide electoral districts used for Senate elections. Use of
'How-to-vote' Cards: Except in Tasmanian State elections, 'How-to-vote' cards are proffered to voters
as they enter polling booths at most Australian elections so that parties can
be sure their recommendations will be followed by voters diligently copying
the recommended voting order onto their ballot-papers. The parties' efforts
are re-inforced by electoral legislation for all
mainland Upper House elections, which are counted by quota-preferential
proportional representation in multi-member districts, where electoral
legislation allows each party's candidates to be listed in the party's column
on the ballot-paper in the order desired by the party. That use
of the law for parties' electoral convenience readily tempts a large majority
of voters to simply vote according to the party's ticket. The Constructive Initiative by the Greens
Party: At the
2010 Federal election, the Australian Greens followed the practice
established earlier by the Australian Democrats of respecting below-the-line
voters by giving equal weighting on its how-to-vote cards to the
recommendation of numbering all squares there. The other
parties, possibly to their disadvantage, still discourage such voters, and
herd them into just following a party line. The Greens did better, by their
initiative of adding a brief explanation of How Preferences Work. Enlarge their card below to read it.
Group Voting
Tickets: Since
1983, Senate ballot-papers have had a Group Voting Ticket option
to further tempt voters to follow their party's recommendations, and that
device has since been adopted for all Examples of 'How-to-Vote Cards' at various other
polls: The 1984 Liberal card (first
year with GVTs) set
out the below-the-line equivalent
of an above-the-line Liberal vote,
and gave the explanation that “Your 1 Liberal vote means that you have voted as below”, with
the below-the-line equivalent
overwritten with the message “No need to mark this section”. The 2001 Liberal card omitted that first statement, but still set
out the below-the-line equivalent
of an above-the-line Liberal vote,
and still overwrote it with the message “No need to complete this part”.
By 2010,
neither the explanation nor the below-the-line
equivalent remained, but there was still the message ‘No need to
complete the “below-the-line” section. At the 2010
poll, the Labor card used a similar advisory message to the
Liberal card when it stated “No need to fill in this part”. |
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Federal Polls |
State Polls |
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Year |
1984 |
2001 |
1992 |
1996 |
2010 |
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Click for card |
Labor |
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Click for results |
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