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QUOTA
Newsletter
of the Proportional Representation Society of QN80 December 1995 www.prsa.org.au ·
Computerized Senate Scrutinies ·
PRSA Targets Discrimination Against Below-the-Line Senate Voters ·
Western
Australian Electoral Moves ·
Parties
Nominating More Candidates than the Number of Seats they Expect ·
Information on Proportional Representation ·
National Office-bearers for 1996-97 Computerized Senate Scrutinies
Criticism
of quota-preferential proportional representation for the time it takes to
count could be vanquished at the next Senate elections by Easycount, the
Australian Electoral Commission's computerized scrutiny count. Alan Jeffrey,
Victorian PRSA member, reports that once the last postal vote is received,
this computer program can complete the counting of vote preferences within
two hours instead of the three weeks or more a manual count takes. The Electoral and Referendum
Amendment Bill 1995, which would have required the AEC to use Easycount at
Senate elections, was amended by the Senate to include truth in political
campaigning proposals that the House of Representatives failed to accept.
That unfortunately stalled the bill. The Easycount part of the bill was
acceptable to both Houses. The AEC is still able to use Easycount. Easycount passed its major test
when used for a re-run of the 1993 More Good News from the ACT
At
the 1998 ACT elections voters will be free to choose to proceed into polling
places uninterrupted. After October's unamended passage of the ACT's
Electoral (Amendment) Bill 1995, canvassing and distribution of electoral
matter will be prohibited within 100 metres of a defined polling area. The
PRSA's ACT Branch strongly supported this, as Robson Rotation stresses the
role of voters, rather than party machines, in determining the composition of
the legislature. Opposition Leader, Rosemary Follett, unsuccessfully moved
amendments requiring "any
electoral matter, including how-to-vote cards made available by candidates
for the purpose of the election" to
be exhibited in each voting compartment. As there were no rules about the
extent of such material or the manner of its compilation, Independent MLA
Michael Moore demonstrated what could happen by bringing into the chamber a
large election-day poster as an example of what could be among the material
displayed in each compartment. In September, the ACT Electoral
Commission upheld the objections of the PRSA's ACT Branch and others to the
registration as a political party of the Smokers are Voters and Civil Rights
group. Prior to the 1995 election, this group had submitted a scrappy single
page, purporting to be a Constitution fulfilling one electoral legislation
requirement for a registered name to appear on the ballot paper. The ACT Branch welcomed the
protection afforded voters by the Commission's decision to insist on evidence
of ratification of constitutions by a general meeting of members, as well as
its setting of minimum content standards in relation to membership
requirements, particulars of office bearers and their election, the keeping
of accounts, and the mechanism for changing a constitution. Late in November the
Attorney-General, Mr Gary Humphries, introduced the Carnell Government's
citizen-initiated referenda legislation, making provision for specific
proposed laws to be referred to the people if 5% of voters have indicated
support for such a course of action within the period allowed for the
collection of signatures. PRSA Targets Discrimination Against Below-the-Line Senate
Voters
In
1983 party boxes became law, but only a very modest reduction in formality
requirements occurred for those voters marking the squares alongside Senate
candidates' names. A vote is accepted provided at least 90% of squares have
been numbered, with no more than three breaks in sequence. Despite the
formidable obstacles still placed in the way of voters wishing to mark
preferences below the line, especially when 50 or more candidates sometimes
nominate, around 600,000 Australians still did so in 1993 (5.6% of formal
votes), compared with over 1,200,000 in 1987 (13.3%). Many of those would be
PRSA members or sympathizers. With two electoral amendment
Bills before Parliament, in September PRSA President Bogey Musidlak and
psephologist Malcolm Mackerras jointly called for an end to the
discriminatory blight that confronts voters wishing to mark boxes alongside
candidates' names. They pointed out that when the single transferable vote is
used to elect 21 Legislative Councillors in NSW only 15 consecutive numbers
are required for a below-the-line vote to be formal, and that seven
preferences are enough in Letters asking for an end to the
Senate double standard were sent to the Hon. Frank Walker, Minister for
Administrative Services, and a range of Senators that have taken an active
interest in electoral matters. WA Greens Senator Christabel Chamarette, who
has made clear her support for optional preferential voting in the report on
the 1993 elections of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, took
up the issue in debate, and intends to continue to press the matter. This is
a matter on which the Society will actively campaign until relief is obtained
for voters. Western Australian Electoral Moves
John
Taplin, President of PRSA's Western Australian Branch, quickly drew public
attention to gross defects in WA's Local Government Bill 1995, which proposes
first-past-the-post voting for local government elections. In a letter to The West
Australian, he suggested that instead thought should be given to computer
counting being adopted for a proportional representation ballot. It was his
understanding that Councils and Shires mostly advocate proportional
representation in three-member wards, and that this was the form the original
draft Bill took. In handing down its first major report in August, the
Commission on Government, headed by a former Auditor-General, Mr Jack Gregor,
recommended that Robson Rotation be used for Legislative Council ballot
papers to discourage political candidates from currying favour within their party
to gain top spot on a ticket. The report also advocated
optional preferential voting for both the Council and the Assembly, the
replacement of the current vote weighting for Legislative Assembly
electorates with a maximum 15% tolerance in enrolments, and that politicians
retiring early should be required to fund part of the cost of the ensuing
by-election. Parties Nominating More Candidates than the
Number of Seats they Expect
One of the invaluable
features of the Hare-Clark electoral system, from the point of view of the
wide choice given to voters, is its inbuilt incentive for parties to nominate
a number of candidates that is often about twice the number of the seats they
expect to fill. Hare-Clark achieves that by filling casual vacancies by a re-examination
of the quota of votes that elected the vacating candidate. By contrast the
more restricted Senate system, where neither general nor periodic elections
are used to determine which candidate will fill a casual vacancy, has often
had major parties nominating as few as one more than the bare majority of the
available seats they have learnt is the best outcome they can expect. Single-member electoral systems, of course, are able to offer the
least scope to voters, as each party usually nominates only one candidate.
Nevertheless, when Australia's present system of preferential voting in
single-member districts began, in the 1920s, some of its advocates claimed
that it would encourage parties to give voters a choice of candidates from
the same party, and hence widen voters' choices, even though, unlike
proportional representation, it cannot increase beyond 51% the percentage of
voters that have an effective vote that actually elects a candidate. That
claim has rarely been repeated since, as parties have resolutely minimized
voters' choices, by standing only one candidate per party. Nevertheless, recent polls for the Northern Territory Legislative
Assembly have reminded people that the possibility does exist. In each of
three such polls the Territory's home-grown Country Liberal Party has fielded
a pair of candidates, as the table below shows. No CLP candidate was elected
in these polls, although the 1995 poll was close. The advantage of the
approach was that CLP voters had a choice, within the party, denied to other
voters, between aboriginal and non-aboriginal candidates in the 1990 polls,
and a choice between aboriginals from two different tribal backgrounds in the
1995 poll.
Preferential voting lets voters choose which
of several candidates of their party they most prefer on the basis of the
different personal backgrounds of the candidates. Many voters consider this a
useful choice, as all the candidates in a party normally follow the same
party platform, and many voters see personal background as their major field
of choice within a party. The preselectors have usually monopolized that
choice by standing one candidate only per party. Recently
the Australian Labor Party has begun to prescribe, without giving voters a
direct choice, that preselections for winnable seats must achieve a
certain minimum percentage of ALP MPs of each sex. A new registered party has
as its main aim there being a mandatorily equal number of male and female MPs
in each Australian Parliament. Hare-Clark elections with similar numbers of
male and female candidates would be the fairest way of allowing voters to
decide, at each election, how far they wished to accept those ideas. By
contrast, with single-member electorates each with a single candidate from
each party, these ideas of the ALP and the new party can only be implemented
by imposing a candidate on voters. Yet any party can, even without PR, as the
CLP has shown, let its voters choose between its candidates. The
ALP or other interested parties could easily stand a man and a woman in each
electoral district so that all voters at each election could choose as they
saw fit. That should increase the overall vote of the party. That may well
have been the motive of the CLP in these cases, but an important added
benefit for voters is the greater choice offered. Information on Proportional Representation
The President of the Victorian Branch of the
PRSA, Dr Lee Naish, has recently organized an informative PRSA home page on
the Internet. It includes a great deal of information that the PRSA is now
promoting on a world-wide basis. Included
are details of our aims and objects, means of contacting us, A Brief History
of the PRSA, the National President's address to the 1995 Annual General
Meeting of the NSW Branch, the Queensland Branch Secretary's university
thesis, A Matter of Preference? Defending the Single Transferable Vote As a result of Lee's initiative,
the PRSA now exchanges Quota Notes for Voice, the newsletter of the Northern
California Citizens for Proportional Representation, of Two excellent Tasmanian reports, Report
on Parliamentary Elections 1990 to 1994", and Local Government
Elections, 1994 are now available free by writing to Mr Andrew Hawkey,
Tasmanian Electoral Office, GPO Box 275C, HOBART TAS 7001. Each report can be
obtained as hard copy or as an Excel spreadsheet on disc, or both. If
requesting a disc, please indicate the disc size and whether PC or Mac
format. The coherent and informative Assembly reports have been produced for
many years. The Victorian Branch collection starts at the Report for
elections from 1942 to 1947! The Tasmanian Electoral Office Reports are
probably the most consistent and illuminating indicators of how the makeup of
a Parliament reflects the wishes of its voters that can be found anywhere in
the world. Perhaps the ACT may begin to give them some competition, but it
will not have as long a span of record as In sad contrast, the Morling Committee of
Inquiry's 1994 recommend-ation, that the Hare-Clark system in Three Bad Electoral Systems
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NOTES