Re: [EM] Election day in Australia
I've never understood, in a free society, the compulsory voting requirement. I also don't understand that for our city councilors, unless they recuse themselves.One should be allowed to be neutral or even ignorant of the alternatives in a choice and abstain to vote. It's our right to not take a position on an issue just as much as it's our right to take any position on the same issue.Voters should be allowed to rank as many (as space permits, there might be a limit of 5 or 6 levels of ranking) or as few candidates as they want. And voters should be able to equally rank as many candidates as they want. Of course, all unranked candidates are tied for last place on that voter's ballot.And our votes must count equally. Hence Condorcet for single-winner RCV elections.Powered by Cricket Wireless------ Original message------From: Chris Benham via Election-MethodsDate: Sat, May 3, 2025 10:25To: Etjon Basha;Cc: EM;Kevin Venzke;Forest Simmons;Subject:Re: [EM] Election day in Austra
lia
Etjon,
There is no concept of "approval" in STV. But from my point of
view, no problem allowing voters to rank or truncate as much as
they like (especially in the single-winner case).
But I think the official thinking is that compulsory preferences
are in the "spirit" of compulsory voting. Since everyone has to
obey the laws passed by the legislators and the government will
(very likely)be formed by one or another major party, then the
government is more legitimate if everyone is coerced/cajoled into
expressing a preference for one of the major parties over
another. If people could show up and just bullet-vote for
"nobody", what is the point of them voting? And if there is no
point in them voting then how can we justify forcing them to
vote? (Still possible in my opinion but maybe more difficult.)
What I consulted to help decide how I would vote:
https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt
On 3/05/2025 11:09 pm, Etjon Basha
wrote:
A bit of a bother, especially the 12 on the Senate
side. Showing my ignorance here, but what issue would there be
in allowing voters (who, in this particular case, have to show
up on pains of a fine) to rank as many of as few as they like,
and show approval by proxy that way? Exhausted votes? So what?
On Sat, 3 May 2025, 11:33 pm
Chris Benham via Election-Methods, <election-methods@lists.electorama.com>
wrote:
The "Leader of the Opposition" (the leader of the
parliamentary Liberal Party, Peter Dutton ) has conceded
defeat. So the Labor federal government stays in power
and the current Prime Minister keeps his job.
I was compelled to vote today, and if I wanted to have my
vote counted (and possibly affect the result) I had to
strictly rank all seven candidates for the single-member
district I live in (in the state of South Australia) for
a seat in the House of Representatives.
I dislike compulsory preferences, but I don't notice
anyone else complaining about them. I consider them are
far lesser evil than any limitation on the number of
candidates a voter can rank, as happens in some parts of
the world that use some version of Hare/IRV.
The GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) effect of compulsory
full-ranking is much lower with Hare than it would be with
a Condorcet method or Borda. And the days when most of
the voters had an FPP mindset and the way you vote for
party X is to blindly follow X's "how-to-vote card" handed
to you by a volunteer as you enter the polling station
are mostly over (or at least have receded a lot). So is
there is less of the effect of transferring some power
from voters to small parties whose candidates get
eliminated.
As well I voted among 39 candidates to fill six vacancies
for the Senate, using STV-PR (semi-corrupted into a sort
of fixed List PR). The candidates were in 16 party groups
plus one "Ungrouped" group. Each group had a least two
candidates and at most four (but I assume five and six are
allowed). I could either ignore the groups and number at
least 12 candidates, or I could ignore the individual
candidates and vote "above the line" and number at least
6 groups.
Australia has a "Westminster" style parliamentary system
and the house of parliament on which the government is
based is elected using single-member districts. The
election campaigns tend to be quasi-presidential with a
lot of focus on which leader of one of the two major
parties voters want to be Prime Minister and much less on
individual local candidates.
One way I think this can be undemocratic is if the leader
of the winning party fails to keep his seat. Peter Dutton
I gather is not completely safe in his seat. It could have
happened that a majority of voters voted Liberal because
they wanted Peter Dutton to be Prime Minister but were
denied just because the voters in his district rejected
him. So then the PM would be a Liberal MP elected by the
Liberal MPs to be the new leader of the parliamentary
Liberal party, someone the majority of voters may dislike
or know little or nothing about.
The leader of a major party is obviously far less likely
to lose his seat in a multi-member district using PR. And
that problem can't exist in a system where the head of the
government is directly elected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916
In
short:
Peter
Dutton will become the first federal leader of an
opposition to lose his own seat.
Mr
Dutton has conceded he has lost Dickson.
What's
next?
The
Liberal Party will have to search for a new leader.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060
"I
think we've seen across the country independents doing
well … some who haven't quite won a seat but have made a
seat marginal for the first time, and I think that's
more and more people wanting a different kind of
politics in Australia," Mr Pocock said.
Chris B.
On 3/05/2025 11:38 am, Rob Lanphier via Election-Methods
wrote:
Hi folks,
Australia is holding an election now. Rumor has it (or should I say
"rumour has it") that these are the best places to track the
Australian election results:
- https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
- https://results.aec.gov.au/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election
Anyone got other reliable sites to track in real-time? If (by the
time you read this), the important elections have all been decided,
I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the results (especially
an informed opinion). The math on this one should be interesting...
Rob
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list info
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
for list info
In practice in Australia there is nothing stopping anyone from voting
"informally" by say just submitting a blank ballot.
I consider such "compulsory voting" to be a small evil which guards
against much greater potential evil. If the state is compelling you to
vote then it must of course make sure that you have an opportunity to vote.
Regarding "levels of ranking" there is never any "space" issue in
Australia. The paper ballots are just made as big as they need to be
for every candidate listed with a box next to their name.
If voters are restricted in the number of candidates they can strictly
rank then some of Hare's good properties, such as compliance with Clone
Independence and Mutual Majority are stuffed up. And allowing
equal-ranking in Hare makes it, depending on how the equal rankings are
handled, more awkward and/or somewhat more vulnerable to Push-over
strategy. I have never heard anyone in Australia complain about not
being able to equal-rank above bottom.
If we must have limited ranking levels and allow equal ranking, then
some Condorcet methods suffer far less. My favourite is still Margins
Sorted Approval (explicit).
Chris
On 4/05/2025 5:41 am, robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods wrote:
I've never understood, in a free society, the compulsory voting
requirement. I also don't understand that for our city councilors,
unless they recuse themselves.
One should be allowed to be neutral or even ignorant of the
alternatives in a choice and abstain to vote. It's our right to not
take a position on an issue just as much as it's our right to take any
position on the same issue.
Voters should be allowed to rank as many (as space permits, there
might be a limit of 5 or 6 levels of ranking) or as few candidates as
they want. And voters should be able to equally rank as many
candidates as they want. Of course, all unranked candidates are tied
for last place on that voter's ballot.
And our votes must count equally. Hence Condorcet for single-winner
RCV elections .
/Powered by Cricket Wireless/
------ Original message------
*From: *Chris Benham via Election-Methods
*Date: *Sat, May 3, 2025 10:25
*To: *Etjon Basha;
*Cc: *EM;Kevin Venzke;Forest Simmons;
*Subject:*Re: [EM] Election day in Australia
Etjon,
There is no concept of "approval" in STV. But from my point of view,
no problem allowing voters to rank or truncate as much as they like
(especially in the single-winner case).
But I think the official thinking is that compulsory preferences are
in the "spirit" of compulsory voting. Since everyone has to obey the
laws passed by the legislators and the government will (very likely)be
formed by one or another major party, then the government is more
legitimate if everyone is coerced/cajoled into expressing a preference
for one of the major parties over another. If people could show up
and just bullet-vote for "nobody", what is the point of them voting?
And if there is no point in them voting then how can we justify
forcing them to vote? (Still possible in my opinion but maybe more
difficult.)
What I consulted to help decide how I would vote:
https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt
On 3/05/2025 11:09 pm, Etjon Basha wrote:
A bit of a bother, especially the 12 on the Senate side. Showing my
ignorance here, but what issue would there be in allowing voters
(who, in this particular case, have to show up on pains of a fine) to
rank as many of as few as they like, and show approval by proxy that
way? Exhausted votes? So what?
On Sat, 3 May 2025, 11:33 pm Chris Benham via Election-Methods,
election-methods@lists.electorama.com wrote:
The "Leader of the Opposition" (the leader of the parliamentary
Liberal Party, Peter Dutton ) has conceded defeat. So the Labor
federal government stays in power and the current Prime Minister
keeps his job.
I was compelled to vote today, and if I wanted to have my vote
counted (and possibly affect the result) I had to strictly rank
all seven candidates for the single-member district I live in
(in the state of South Australia) for a seat in the House of
Representatives.
I dislike compulsory preferences, but I don't notice anyone else
complaining about them. I consider them are far lesser evil than
any limitation on the number of candidates a voter can rank, as
happens in some parts of the world that use some version of Hare/IRV.
The GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) effect of compulsory
full-ranking is much lower with Hare than it would be with a
Condorcet method or Borda. And the days when most of the voters
had an FPP mindset and the way you vote for party X is to blindly
follow X's "how-to-vote card" handed to you by a volunteer as you
enter the polling station are mostly over (or at least have
receded a lot). So is there is less of the effect of transferring
some power from voters to small parties whose candidates get
eliminated.
As well I voted among 39 candidates to fill six vacancies for the
Senate, using STV-PR (semi-corrupted into a sort of fixed List
PR). The candidates were in 16 party groups plus one "Ungrouped"
group. Each group had a least two candidates and at most four
(but I assume five and six are allowed). I could either ignore
the groups and number at least 12 candidates, or I could ignore
the individual candidates and vote "above the line" and number
at least 6 groups.
Australia has a "Westminster" style parliamentary system and the
house of parliament on which the government is based is elected
using single-member districts. The election campaigns tend to be
quasi-presidential with a lot of focus on which leader of one of
the two major parties voters want to be Prime Minister and much
less on individual local candidates.
One way I think this can be undemocratic is if the leader of the
winning party fails to keep his seat. Peter Dutton I gather is
not completely safe in his seat. It could have happened that a
majority of voters voted Liberal because they wanted Peter Dutton
to be Prime Minister but were denied just because the voters in
his district rejected him. So then the PM would be a Liberal MP
elected by the Liberal MPs to be the new leader of the
parliamentary Liberal party, someone the majority of voters may
dislike or know little or nothing about.
The leader of a major party is obviously far less likely to lose
his seat in a multi-member district using PR. And that problem
can't exist in a system where the head of the government is
directly elected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916
In short: Peter Dutton will become the first federal leader of
an opposition to lose his own seat. Mr Dutton has conceded he
has lost Dickson. What's next? The Liberal Party will have to
search for a new leader.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060
"I think we've seen across the country independents doing well …
some who haven't quite won a seat but have made a seat marginal
for the first time, and I think that's more and more people
wanting a different kind of politics in Australia," Mr Pocock said.
Chris B.
On 3/05/2025 11:38 am, Rob Lanphier via Election-Methods wrote:
Hi folks,
Australia is holding an election now. Rumor has it (or should I say
"rumour has it") that these are the best places to track the
Australian election results:
*https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
*https://results.aec.gov.au/
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election
Anyone got other reliable sites to track in real-time? If (by
the time you read this), the important elections have all been
decided, I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the
results (especially an informed opinion). The math on this one
should be interesting... Rob ---- Election-Methods mailing list
- see https://electorama.com/em for list info
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for
list info
Election-Methods mailing list - seehttps://electorama.com/em for list info
An interesting video on a channel I recently came across:
Here's Why Australian Elections Can't Be Rigged | AUSPOL EXPLAINED
Auspol Explained
28.3K subscribers
63,337 views May 12, 2025 #40 on Trending
Every election there'll be someone unhappy with the results and
someone claiming it was rigged. But in Australia that kind of claim
just doesn't stack up. There is a LOT of scrutiny on Australian
elections! They're also run by independent electoral commissions. So,
if you doubt their validity or if you're just curious about all the
levels of details, security, scrutiny and transparency that goes into
ensuring that elections are fair and conducted impartially then here's
an episode explaining just how hard it is to do anything dodgy. This
may also help you provide rebuttals to anyone claiming in your life
"it was rigged!" simply because they don't like a result.
Learn more about elections and voting in Australia at:
https://aec.gov.au/
You can get a copy of the script with citations here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wKgiSj9llxqeID746WS532mhOZR65gp1/view?pli=1
I watched all of it and thought it was fine.
Not discussed in this video but it also helps a lot that the Hare method
used is Clone Independent.
Chris Benham
On 5/05/2025 2:22 am, Chris Benham via Election-Methods wrote:
In practice in Australia there is nothing stopping anyone from voting
"informally" by say just submitting a blank ballot.
I consider such "compulsory voting" to be a small evil which guards
against much greater potential evil. If the state is compelling you
to vote then it must of course make sure that you have an opportunity
to vote.
Regarding "levels of ranking" there is never any "space" issue in
Australia. The paper ballots are just made as big as they need to be
for every candidate listed with a box next to their name.
If voters are restricted in the number of candidates they can strictly
rank then some of Hare's good properties, such as compliance with
Clone Independence and Mutual Majority are stuffed up. And allowing
equal-ranking in Hare makes it, depending on how the equal rankings
are handled, more awkward and/or somewhat more vulnerable to
Push-over strategy. I have never heard anyone in Australia complain
about not being able to equal-rank above bottom.
If we must have limited ranking levels and allow equal ranking, then
some Condorcet methods suffer far less. My favourite is still
Margins Sorted Approval (explicit).
Chris
On 4/05/2025 5:41 am, robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods wrote:
I've never understood, in a free society, the compulsory voting
requirement. I also don't understand that for our city councilors,
unless they recuse themselves.
One should be allowed to be neutral or even ignorant of the
alternatives in a choice and abstain to vote. It's our right to not
take a position on an issue just as much as it's our right to take
any position on the same issue.
Voters should be allowed to rank as many (as space permits, there
might be a limit of 5 or 6 levels of ranking) or as few candidates as
they want. And voters should be able to equally rank as many
candidates as they want. Of course, all unranked candidates are tied
for last place on that voter's ballot.
And our votes must count equally. Hence Condorcet for single-winner
RCV elections .
/Powered by Cricket Wireless/
------ Original message------
*From: *Chris Benham via Election-Methods
*Date: *Sat, May 3, 2025 10:25
*To: *Etjon Basha;
*Cc: *EM;Kevin Venzke;Forest Simmons;
*Subject:*Re: [EM] Election day in Australia
Etjon,
There is no concept of "approval" in STV. But from my point of view,
no problem allowing voters to rank or truncate as much as they like
(especially in the single-winner case).
But I think the official thinking is that compulsory preferences are
in the "spirit" of compulsory voting. Since everyone has to obey the
laws passed by the legislators and the government will (very
likely)be formed by one or another major party, then the government
is more legitimate if everyone is coerced/cajoled into expressing a
preference for one of the major parties over another. If people could
show up and just bullet-vote for "nobody", what is the point of them
voting? And if there is no point in them voting then how can we
justify forcing them to vote? (Still possible in my opinion but
maybe more difficult.)
What I consulted to help decide how I would vote:
https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt
On 3/05/2025 11:09 pm, Etjon Basha wrote:
A bit of a bother, especially the 12 on the Senate side. Showing my
ignorance here, but what issue would there be in allowing voters
(who, in this particular case, have to show up on pains of a fine)
to rank as many of as few as they like, and show approval by proxy
that way? Exhausted votes? So what?
On Sat, 3 May 2025, 11:33 pm Chris Benham via Election-Methods,
election-methods@lists.electorama.com wrote:
The "Leader of the Opposition" (the leader of the parliamentary
Liberal Party, Peter Dutton ) has conceded defeat. So the Labor
federal government stays in power and the current Prime Minister
keeps his job.
I was compelled to vote today, and if I wanted to have my vote
counted (and possibly affect the result) I had to strictly rank
all seven candidates for the single-member district I live in
(in the state of South Australia) for a seat in the House of
Representatives.
I dislike compulsory preferences, but I don't notice anyone else
complaining about them. I consider them are far lesser evil than
any limitation on the number of candidates a voter can rank, as
happens in some parts of the world that use some version of
Hare/IRV.
The GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) effect of compulsory
full-ranking is much lower with Hare than it would be with a
Condorcet method or Borda. And the days when most of the voters
had an FPP mindset and the way you vote for party X is to
blindly follow X's "how-to-vote card" handed to you by a
volunteer as you enter the polling station are mostly over (or
at least have receded a lot). So is there is less of the effect
of transferring some power from voters to small parties whose
candidates get eliminated.
As well I voted among 39 candidates to fill six vacancies for
the Senate, using STV-PR (semi-corrupted into a sort of fixed
List PR). The candidates were in 16 party groups plus one
"Ungrouped" group. Each group had a least two candidates and at
most four (but I assume five and six are allowed). I could
either ignore the groups and number at least 12 candidates, or I
could ignore the individual candidates and vote "above the line"
and number at least 6 groups.
Australia has a "Westminster" style parliamentary system and the
house of parliament on which the government is based is elected
using single-member districts. The election campaigns tend to
be quasi-presidential with a lot of focus on which leader of one
of the two major parties voters want to be Prime Minister and
much less on individual local candidates.
One way I think this can be undemocratic is if the leader of the
winning party fails to keep his seat. Peter Dutton I gather is
not completely safe in his seat. It could have happened that a
majority of voters voted Liberal because they wanted Peter
Dutton to be Prime Minister but were denied just because the
voters in his district rejected him. So then the PM would be a
Liberal MP elected by the Liberal MPs to be the new leader of
the parliamentary Liberal party, someone the majority of voters
may dislike or know little or nothing about.
The leader of a major party is obviously far less likely to lose
his seat in a multi-member district using PR. And that problem
can't exist in a system where the head of the government is
directly elected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916
In short: Peter Dutton will become the first federal leader of
an opposition to lose his own seat. Mr Dutton has conceded he
has lost Dickson. What's next? The Liberal Party will have to
search for a new leader.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060
"I think we've seen across the country independents doing well
… some who haven't quite won a seat but have made a seat
marginal for the first time, and I think that's more and more
people wanting a different kind of politics in Australia," Mr
Pocock said.
Chris B.
On 3/05/2025 11:38 am, Rob Lanphier via Election-Methods wrote:
Hi folks,
Australia is holding an election now. Rumor has it (or should I say
"rumour has it") that these are the best places to track the
Australian election results:
*https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
*https://results.aec.gov.au/
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election
Anyone got other reliable sites to track in real-time? If (by
the time you read this), the important elections have all been
decided, I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the
results (especially an informed opinion). The math on this one
should be interesting... Rob ---- Election-Methods mailing list
- see https://electorama.com/em for list info
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em
for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - seehttps://electorama.com/em for list info
Election-Methods mailing list - seehttps://electorama.com/em for list info
Robert,
A good video that I just came across that discusses the history and
philosophy and legality of compulsory voting in Australia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YJciGycB0
I agree that Condorcet is nice, but not that it is necessary for votes
to "count equally". In Hare for example, all voters who choose to rank
all the candidates are guaranteed to participate in all the voting
rounds with the same weight.
Chris
On 4/05/2025 5:41 am, robert bristow-johnson via Election-Methods wrote:
I've never understood, in a free society, the compulsory voting
requirement. I also don't understand that for our city councilors,
unless they recuse themselves.
One should be allowed to be neutral or even ignorant of the
alternatives in a choice and abstain to vote. It's our right to not
take a position on an issue just as much as it's our right to take any
position on the same issue.
Voters should be allowed to rank as many (as space permits, there
might be a limit of 5 or 6 levels of ranking) or as few candidates as
they want. And voters should be able to equally rank as many
candidates as they want. Of course, all unranked candidates are tied
for last place on that voter's ballot.
And our votes must count equally. Hence Condorcet for single-winner
RCV elections .
/Powered by Cricket Wireless/
------ Original message------
*From: *Chris Benham via Election-Methods
*Date: *Sat, May 3, 2025 10:25
*To: *Etjon Basha;
*Cc: *EM;Kevin Venzke;Forest Simmons;
*Subject:*Re: [EM] Election day in Australia
Etjon,
There is no concept of "approval" in STV. But from my point of view,
no problem allowing voters to rank or truncate as much as they like
(especially in the single-winner case).
But I think the official thinking is that compulsory preferences are
in the "spirit" of compulsory voting. Since everyone has to obey the
laws passed by the legislators and the government will (very likely)be
formed by one or another major party, then the government is more
legitimate if everyone is coerced/cajoled into expressing a preference
for one of the major parties over another. If people could show up
and just bullet-vote for "nobody", what is the point of them voting?
And if there is no point in them voting then how can we justify
forcing them to vote? (Still possible in my opinion but maybe more
difficult.)
What I consulted to help decide how I would vote:
https://www.buildaballot.org.au/electorates/sturt
On 3/05/2025 11:09 pm, Etjon Basha wrote:
A bit of a bother, especially the 12 on the Senate side. Showing my
ignorance here, but what issue would there be in allowing voters
(who, in this particular case, have to show up on pains of a fine) to
rank as many of as few as they like, and show approval by proxy that
way? Exhausted votes? So what?
On Sat, 3 May 2025, 11:33 pm Chris Benham via Election-Methods,
election-methods@lists.electorama.com wrote:
The "Leader of the Opposition" (the leader of the parliamentary
Liberal Party, Peter Dutton ) has conceded defeat. So the Labor
federal government stays in power and the current Prime Minister
keeps his job.
I was compelled to vote today, and if I wanted to have my vote
counted (and possibly affect the result) I had to strictly rank
all seven candidates for the single-member district I live in
(in the state of South Australia) for a seat in the House of
Representatives.
I dislike compulsory preferences, but I don't notice anyone else
complaining about them. I consider them are far lesser evil than
any limitation on the number of candidates a voter can rank, as
happens in some parts of the world that use some version of Hare/IRV.
The GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) effect of compulsory
full-ranking is much lower with Hare than it would be with a
Condorcet method or Borda. And the days when most of the voters
had an FPP mindset and the way you vote for party X is to blindly
follow X's "how-to-vote card" handed to you by a volunteer as you
enter the polling station are mostly over (or at least have
receded a lot). So is there is less of the effect of transferring
some power from voters to small parties whose candidates get
eliminated.
As well I voted among 39 candidates to fill six vacancies for the
Senate, using STV-PR (semi-corrupted into a sort of fixed List
PR). The candidates were in 16 party groups plus one "Ungrouped"
group. Each group had a least two candidates and at most four
(but I assume five and six are allowed). I could either ignore
the groups and number at least 12 candidates, or I could ignore
the individual candidates and vote "above the line" and number
at least 6 groups.
Australia has a "Westminster" style parliamentary system and the
house of parliament on which the government is based is elected
using single-member districts. The election campaigns tend to be
quasi-presidential with a lot of focus on which leader of one of
the two major parties voters want to be Prime Minister and much
less on individual local candidates.
One way I think this can be undemocratic is if the leader of the
winning party fails to keep his seat. Peter Dutton I gather is
not completely safe in his seat. It could have happened that a
majority of voters voted Liberal because they wanted Peter Dutton
to be Prime Minister but were denied just because the voters in
his district rejected him. So then the PM would be a Liberal MP
elected by the Liberal MPs to be the new leader of the
parliamentary Liberal party, someone the majority of voters may
dislike or know little or nothing about.
The leader of a major party is obviously far less likely to lose
his seat in a multi-member district using PR. And that problem
can't exist in a system where the head of the government is
directly elected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916
In short: Peter Dutton will become the first federal leader of
an opposition to lose his own seat. Mr Dutton has conceded he
has lost Dickson. What's next? The Liberal Party will have to
search for a new leader.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/act-election-results-senate-house-of-representatives-2025/105244060
"I think we've seen across the country independents doing well …
some who haven't quite won a seat but have made a seat marginal
for the first time, and I think that's more and more people
wanting a different kind of politics in Australia," Mr Pocock said.
Chris B.
On 3/05/2025 11:38 am, Rob Lanphier via Election-Methods wrote:
Hi folks,
Australia is holding an election now. Rumor has it (or should I say
"rumour has it") that these are the best places to track the
Australian election results:
*https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal-election-2025
*https://results.aec.gov.au/
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election
Anyone got other reliable sites to track in real-time? If (by
the time you read this), the important elections have all been
decided, I'm curious to know if you have an opinion on the
results (especially an informed opinion). The math on this one
should be interesting... Rob ---- Election-Methods mailing list
- see https://electorama.com/em for list info
----
Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for
list info
Election-Methods mailing list - seehttps://electorama.com/em for list info
On 05/20/2025 5:50 PM EDT Chris Benham via Election-Methods election-methods@lists.electorama.com wrote:
A good video that I just came across that discusses the history and philosophy and legality of compulsory voting in Australia:
Thanks. It's that we need to get politicians to listen to the poor and marginalized and they won't if the poor and marginalized don't vote. That's what I picked up on. (And that if so few enfranchised voters actually vote, the legitimacy of the elected candidates might be questioned as not really having a majority of support.)
I still think that we have a right to say "I dunno and I don't care."
I agree that Condorcet is nice, but not that it is necessary for votes to "count equally". In Hare for example, all voters who choose to rank all the candidates are guaranteed to participate in all the voting rounds with the same weight.
But, again, that doesn't guarantee that all of our votes are counted equally. Voters for the loser in the Hare IRV final round do not get their second-choice vote counted. They can't have their first-choice candidate elected and their second-choice vote doesn't count. That is not equal to those who have had their first-choice candidate eliminated earlier in the IRV process.
For it to be truly equal, it shouldn't make any difference. A voter should be able to rank their sincere preferences and not worry that they'll regret voting for their first choice because their first choice might lose in the final round and their second-choice vote will never be counted.
If more voters marked their ballots preferring A to B and, at the end of the day (or in Alaska 15 days later), B is elected, the greater number of voters preferring A did not cast votes that were as effective, that counted as much, as the votes from the fewer voters preferring B.
If we have ranked ballots, and the election is spoiled (fails IIA), then some votes were not counted equally to others. Even if there was no Condorcet winner to elect. But if the CW exists and is elected, there is no way that anyone can show that votes were not counted equally.
Condorcet is Majority Rule in all election cases except the vanishing few that Arrow says are impossible to get a consistent Majority Rule.
That's my two-cents.
--
r b-j . _ . _ . _ . _ rbj@audioimagination.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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