The most astonishing result of the 2013 Australian election was the extra-ordinary election of Wayne Dropulich of the Australian Sports Party in the Western Australia Senate.
With a first preference vote for his party of just 0.23%, it took an astonshing sequence of exclusions and preference flows to allow Mr Dropulich to increase his vote more than fifty fold to reach the quota of 14.3%. He was elected to fill the fifth seat ahead of the Greens who had polled 9.5% of the first preference vote.
At this stage whether Mr Dropulich will take his Senate seat depends on proceedings before the Court of Disputed Returns. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has petitioned the Court to void the result and order a new election for the WA Senate.
As will be outlined below, Mr Dropulich was initially defeated on the distribution of preferences performed after the initially tally of all first preferences. After the AEC permitted a re-count, Mr Dropulich was elected on the distribution of preferences that followed the completion of the second count.
However, 1,370 ballot papers could not be located for the re-count and these were not included in the second count and distribution of preferences. If the tally of the missing votes from the first count were added to the second count, the result would change again, with a critical one vote difference at a crucial point in the count resulting in Mr Dropulich failing to be elected.
Having been duly declared elected, Mr Dropulich is entitled to be sworn in as a Senator on 1 July if the Court has not decided the matter before then, or if the Court chooses to let the second count excluding the missing votes stand. If the Court orders a fresh election, Mr Dropulich would no longer be entitled to his Senate seat. If the Court does not issue orders for a fresh election until after 1 July, Mr Dropulich would be entitled to hold his seat until a judgment is given.
What was remarkable about Mr Dropulich's victory was how a party that finished 21st out of the 27 parties on the ballot paper managed to get elected. Of the 20 parties that contributed ticket votes to his quota for election, 15 polled more votes than the Australian Sports Party.
The path by which Mr Dropulich passed those 15 parties and gained their preferences was perilous. At three points in the count Mr Dropulich was the second lowest polling candidate remaining, and on each occasion he picked up preferences from the excluded candidate that allowed him remain in the count by avoiding last place.
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I find the comments about those too stupid to work this out themselves disturbing. Im glad that you are well educated and informed (Id like to think I am too) but not everyone is and it doesnt mean that their views shouldnt count because they are to...
My complaint is that the current system of compulosry preferential voting and ticket voting means that voters end up either voting for a party ticket which it is nearly impossible for them to understand the preferences of, or complete an endless sequ...
All I want is to be able to preference parties, listed in the existing Senate above the line format, just like I do for the Reps. I resent having my preferences decided for me, which means a tedious filling in of the individual names. The latter can ...
All Votes should be equal but a vote for labor or liberal is worth $2.48 more than most other partys due to the 4% cut off for election funding which unfairly favours the existing duopoly partys - that is not how democracy is supposed to work all vot...