Any mechanism that gives some candidates a better chance of being elected than other candidates is unfair. We are not primarily concerned with unfairness to candidates themselves; typically most candidates are members of political parties that use and support group voting tickets. We are concerned with unfairness to the voters whose opinions fail to be represented due to the influence of the small number of people that effectively control the formulation of group voting tickets. There is little doubt that group voting tickets have changed the result of elections.
The March 1999 New South Wales poll for half of the Legislative Council was a startling example. The whole state was a single electorate and a record 264 candidates stood and a record number of 80 parties or groups resulted in a huge ballot paper. Alan Corbett's surprise election in 1995 to represent ``A Better Future For Our Children'' appears to have spawned a plethora of parties registering catchy names at the last moment and agreeing to put similar parties ahead of larger longer-established ones on their registered voting tickets. Glenn Druery of ``Republic 2001/People First Party'' cheerfully admitted to bringing together over 40 such groups for agreements about preferences. Commentators that said his election was almost certain were proved wrong. The effect of the lodged tickets, once the ALP and Coalition had run out of surpluses, was to elect Malcolm Jones. His ``Outdoor Recreation Party'' gained only 7264 first preference votes, less than five percent of a quota. The low number of first preference is not the main concern -- elected candidates of the major parties that are not first on the ticket are frequently elected with tiny first preference totals. The main concern is that his election was not due to the genuine preferences of the voters but due to the deals made by Glenn Druery and others. It is at least plausible to suggest that the electoral system delivered a result that did not accord with the preferences of the voters, leaving them with poorer representation.
The presence of group voting tickets together with the low quota (due to the single state-wide electorate) encouraged a large number of ``micro-parties'' and preference swapping deals that led to Malcolm Jones being elected with very little popular support. It is rational to expect that any candidate elected in part due to any influence other than the voters' opinions will be less responsive to the voters. It must be tempting at least for Malcolm Jones to do the right thing by Glenn Druery rather than the voters he supposedly represents. Similarly, elected candidates from the major parties owe their election to the popularity of the party as a whole and their position within the group voting ticket of the party. Due to the overwhelming number of voters who vote ``above the line'', candidates are almost always elected in the order of the group voting ticket -- candidates high on the ticket are guaranteed election and those low on the list are (almost) guaranteed not to be elected. Thus elected major party candidates are likely to be more responsive to the party power brokers who determine the order of candidates on the group voting ticket than the voters. Results such as the 1986 Tasmanian elections (see Section 3.4) are unheard of where group voting tickets are used -- a sitting member with enough party or faction support can be unresponsive to the voters without risking their seat.
Despite their undemocratic nature, group voting tickets are popular with the politicians that devise electoral systems in Australia and are being used in a growing number of jurisdictions. Several arguments have been used to support their introduction, but these arguments are faulty or better alternatives exist.