PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA
	Tel  +613 9589 1802	Tel  +61429176725	18 Anita Street	BEAUMARIS VIC 3193
		info@prsa.org.au	www.prsa.org.au	2009-12-19

The ‘How-to-vote’ Cards used in Australian elections
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. 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 mainland State Upper Houses, and unfortunately even been extended to municipal elections in NSW and the City of Melbourne. Tasmania has moved in the other direction, and introduced Robson Rotation to counter the use of 'How-to-vote' cards, and a 1995 Australian Capital Territory referendum included Robson Rotation in the electoral features now legislatively entrenched there. Examples of 'How-to-Vote Cards' at various polls:
	Federal Polls						State Poll
Year	1984		2001				1992
Click for card	Liberal	Labor	Liberal	Labor	Democrat	Independent	Liberal
Click for results			2001 Goldstein				1992 Denison
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