7

How much does an individual candidate’s vote matter in the Senate?

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 28, 2016

There’s a meme going around from a supporter of the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party claiming Senate reforms are illegitimate because Ricky Muir polled more votes individually than a handful of other elected Senators.

Here’s an example:

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I’ve previously discussed how difficult it is to cast a vote below the line. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of voters vote above the line. In 2013, 96.83% of formal votes were above the line – in other words, they were cast for a party’s preference ticket, not for any individual. A further 2.73% voted for candidates ranked first in their column. Only 0.436% of voters decided to cast a primary vote for any candidate not ranked first.

Since others seem to think there is value in looking at candidates’ individual below-the-line votes, let’s see what the data tells us. Read the rest of this entry »

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5

Federal electorate map of NSW finalised

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 25, 2016

The AEC has released the final maps for the NSW federal redistribution today, after the decisions were first announced in January.

I had made a Google Earth map of my best estimates of the electoral boundaries in January, and these are largely accurate.

The only spots where I was incorrect were:

  • Hume/Eden-Monaro border
  • Grayndler/Reid
  • Hume/Werriwa
  • Fowler/McMahon

You can download the final map here.

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30

Senate voting reform – the bill drops

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 22, 2016

So we now have the government’s legislation for Senate voting reform. You can read it here.

The key points are as follows.

Abolition of group voting tickets

From now on there won’t be any distribution of preferences beyond a single party group unless the voter marks it themselves on the ballot.

Introduction of optional preferential voting above the line

From now on you will be allowed to number as many boxes as you want above the line, and your vote will flow through each party group in ticket order.

The ballot paper will carry instructions saying the voter must number “at least 6” boxes above the line, although that would revert to being full compulsory preferential voting if six or less groups nominate.

Having said that, votes just containing a ‘1’ above the line will be formal, and there is no “Langer clause” which would prevent parties or other groups advocating for a person to number less than six boxes above the line.

No major changes to below-the-line voting

Despite JSCEM recommending optional preferential voting below the line, this bill only slightly loosens the requirements for below-the-line voting. You’ll still need to number most boxes for your vote to count, but you’ll be allowed up to five sequencing errors, up from the current three.

Party logos on the ballot paper

This one wasn’t expected! Presumably this is motivated by Liberal concern about confusion with the Liberal Democrats. It’s not unheard-of: New Zealand has party logos on the ballot.

Prohibition on being Registered Officer of multiple parties

This is to address the concern about David Leyonhjelm being the registered officer (who is the official who liaises with the AEC and nominates candidates) of multiple parties.

I will have some more commentary this evening about the political impact of the reforms, but feel free to use this post to discuss the reforms as they unfold today.

Update: No counting of Senate ballots

Unfortunately I missed one major change. The legislation proposes that Senate ballots are no longer counted and recorded in group totals on election night. Antony Green has looked into this.

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0

Queensland council elections – map progress

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 20, 2016

Queensland goes to the polls to elect their local councils on March 19.

I’m currently working on my guide to the Brisbane City Council election – so far I’ve finished guides to ten wards out of 26.

The other piece of the puzzle is a complete ward map of Queensland, as I have done for every election since 2008.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it done – moving house and taking some time off the blog over the summer slowed me down, and I’ve decided to prioritise finishing the Brisbane guide.

I’ve decided to post my partially-complete map. I’ve completed the boundaries for Banana, Isaac, Rockhampton, Whitsunday and Brisbane, but not Cairns, Tablelands, Townsville, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton Bay, Redland, Scenic Rim, Sunshine Coast, Bundaberg and Fraser Coast.

I plan to finish this map before election day – but maybe not long before the election.

Download the map here.

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45

How hard is it to go your own way voting in the Senate?

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 19, 2016

In the last few days, I’ve been involved in a lot of discussions about Senate reform, and many times I’ve had people insist that voters make a choice to hand control of their vote to their party, and any voter should be able to vote below-the-line if they wanted to. These arguments often insist that below-the-line voting is easy, and stray into elitist arguments about ordinary voters being lazy.

Screen Shot 2016-02-19 at 9.41.46 am

Now there are multiple different reasons why voters lack informed choice when voting in the Senate, including how difficult it is to understand the impact of a GVT even when you’re an electoral expert, but I’m just going to focus on the idea that it’s easy to vote below-the-line, and thus voters have a reasonable option if they wish to opt out of the parties’ preference machine.

In short, approximately 30% of below-the-line votes end up in the informal pile, and as the number of candidates increase there is a corresponding increase in the overall informal rate, and a decline in the below-the-line rate. Read the rest of this entry »

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21

Refuting self-interested garbage in the SMH

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 17, 2016

In yesterday’s Herald, Heath Aston ran an ‘exclusive‘ publishing supposed modelling from a couple of so-called “veteran players in minor party preference negotiations” claiming that Senate GVT reform would deliver the Coalition a majority in the Senate.

There’s a lot of massive problems with this prediction, and I’ll try to lay them out.

At the end I will apply some of the same logic, but using real polling data and come up with my own less sensationalised conclusion, which suggests a Coalition win would lead to Xenophon balance of power, but if Labor recovered to a winnable position then the Greens would likely win the balance of power.

Read the rest of this entry »

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10

Fixed four year terms across Australia

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 16, 2016

I’m currently working on my guide for the Brisbane City Council election, as well as updating my ward map of Queensland, both for the local government election on March 19.

On the same day as that election, Queenslanders will be voting in a constitutional referendum, which would fix state elections to be held on the same date, and extend the term from three years to four.

If this referendum is successful, the only remaining elected body in Australia running on three-year terms will be the federal Parliament, and all state and territory parliaments other than Tasmania will have put in place fixed four-terms in their state constitutions.

If I read the proposed change correctly, the first scheduled fixed-term election in Queensland would take place in October 2018, which would put the three biggest states in Australia on a schedule where all three would take place within five months from October to March every four years, starting in 2018/19. As someone who appreciates some lead-time before elections, I can’t say I’m looking forward to these three big elections basically happening simultaneously on a semi-permanent basis.

UPDATE: Thanks to Edward and Michael in comments who pointed out that the amendment would not take effect until after the next election, so if the election is in 2017 then future elections will be in 2020, 2024, 2028 etc, and if it’s in 2018 they’ll be in 2021, 2025, etc. Either way Queensland elections would be significantly separated from Victoria and New South Wales in time.

Thanks to these changes, we now have reasonably predictable timelines for all non-federal elections in Australia, and we can plot them out on a timetable which I’ve included below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

27

Senate voting reform looks set to go ahead

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 12, 2016

According to a report in this morning’s Guardian, the Coalition, the Greens and Nick Xenophon appear close to an agreement on Senate voting reform. There’s also an accompanying media release from Lee Rhiannon.

The proposed plan, put to the government by the Greens, would abolish group voting tickets (the mechanism whereby preferences flow according to pre-lodged party preference decisions when voters vote ‘1’ above the line for a party), and would allow voters to number their own preferences for parties above the line or for candidates below the line.

This proposal is very similar to that proposed unanimously by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM), with a few exceptions:

  • Voters would be expected to number at least six boxes above the line or twelve boxes below the line. As I understand it, there would be a savings provision so votes that don’t number enough boxes would still count.
  • The Greens don’t propose any changes to party registration rules, whereas JSCEM had proposed raising the threshold for party registration from 500 members to 1500 members.

While the article is written as if agreement has been reached, it’s unclear whether the Coalition has agreed to the Greens’ demand that party registration be taken out of the package. It’s also unclear where Labor stands on the proposal – while some senior Labor senators are opposed, there are others in the party who support Senate reform.

Read the rest of this entry »

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0

Ireland 2016 – map available

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on February 4, 2016

I was requested to update my Irish constituency map for the upcoming general election. I’m not planning any further coverage of the Irish election, which is due at the end of February, but if you’re interested you can download the map here.

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3

NSW and WA redistributions – updated maps

By
Ben Raue
– Posted on January 20, 2016

We are now nearing the end of the federal redistribution process which precedes the next federal election.

We had redistributions in New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

The AEC has a curious process where they announce the final boundaries but do not provide the maps and data which allow people to see the precise boundaries. This extra information is usually provided about a month later.

In the ACT, the final boundaries were identical to the draft boundaries, so no further maps are necessary (although the final data is expected next week). In Western Australia, the final maps were released yesterday, and I’ll post them further down in this post.

In New South Wales, the final boundaries were announced last Friday, without any maps. In most places it’s reasonably clear what boundaries they were using (although a few were confusing). I’ve done my best to put together a new map – I think it’s likely to be accurate but there may be a few errors (in particular the Hume/Whitlam boundary and the Parkes/New England boundary) and I will update it when the official data is released in late February.

Download the NSW final-ish electoral map.

Download the WA final electoral map.

Download the ACT final electoral map.

Below the fold you can see interactive maps for NSW and WA, although I haven’t added any other data to the maps, just the boundaries.

Read the rest of this entry »

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