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Oct. 25th, 2012 01:27 pmI'm taking a pause in my furious lifestyle to admire the election results. The ACT has one of the most even-handed systems in the world and so the value of each of our votes is as close to equal as values are likely to get.
It's a painfully complex system. There are only three electorates in the ACT, but there are something like 140 forms of the ballot (so that donkey voting won't bias things). Also, ACT voters are sophisticated and many of us refuse to vote along party lines. Most of us recognise that our votes will actually make a difference (unlike when we vote for the Senate) and so we take it seriously.
In my electorate, there are five folks who will get elected so we had to number five squares at least for our vote to be valid. Beyond five, we can number as many or as few as we wish. A lot of people I know numbered all 20 squares. A small group of ratbags - amongst whom I count myself - carefully research candidates and find the most obnoxious purely to give them the signal honour of the highest number. These votes don't count, but it's quite possible that the first dozen of my votes are being trawled through, given where I gave them and how the quota system operates. My ballot, in fact, is one of the many that pass through the system over and again until my vote is actually counted. Giving someone no. 20 is pure ratbaggery, but making sure that more than 5 boxes are numbered is sensible voting in this system if one doesn't follow party lines.
Only 90% of eligible voters have voted#: it's a low turnout for our system, but most of the non-voters have legitimate reasons and the others will pay a small fine and complain about how the rest of us voted for someone dreadful.
The first preferences are basically counted. The cut-off for postal votes is tomorrow, so there may be a last few. There should be a result by now. In most systems, there would be, even if the result were a hung Parliament, which was our most recent Federal result.
We're not even close to a result, however. We're such a sophisticated electorate that we have managed to create the vast discrepancy of 46 votes between the two major parties in the primary vote. We have given neither party enough votes to win outright~ and we have carefully allocated our preferences in such a complex manner that the counting is slow and painstaking and continues for long hours every day.
Zed is looking a bit of a twerp for claiming such a solid lead over Labor last Saturday. His party has benefited by a significant swing, but Labor hasn't actually lost votes at all and has a small swing in their direction. All the minor parties and independents are the big losers. What's exceptionally fascinating about this is that, since we (as voters) have not voted along party lines, and since all our preferences count, no-one really knows where the votes that started off as benefiting the Greens or the Pirate Party or the Bullet Train for Canberra Party will end up. If they go to Liberal, then Liberal is in, and that's what Zed* assumed last Saturday, but mine certainly didn't go to Liberal, for I'm giving low preferences to the Libs until they work out what they're doing with a whole bunch of issues I care deeply about. Labor is vastly imperfect so it's not my party of choice, but Labor candidates went above Libs on my ballot. And this is one system where my preferences count. The question is, who else has done what I've done? A lot of people, it seems. This is why we know that the leaders of the two big parties got in (they achieved their quotas outright) but it's taking a long time to work out who else is there.
We'll know on Saturday, perhaps.
# which is not relevant, but it's the statistic that lured me into checking the count before final results are out - for those who really don't understand Australian elections, most Australians over 18 are eligible voters, that's why I took the photo of the vast crowds at my polling booth
~a candidate needs to reach a quota (a % of the vote - with first preferences counting more and complex formulae to allow for lower preferences for voters whose vote has not yet elected someone) to get elected and we didn't give enough candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes - in fact, we gave almost no candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes, so no party can form government from primary votes - we are so awesomely complicated.
* The reason that I keep referring to Zed rather than to Katy (and yes, we use first names in the ACT - I haven't met Zed, but I have met Katy several times, and she calls me Gillian and I called her predecessor Jon - we are a nation's capital that's a strange cross between city and country and this is one of the places it shows) is because it makes me very happy inside to know that there is a political leader whose name is the last letter of the alphabet. If this was the US, then he'd have to be call Zee, which is, in fact, even funnier.
It's a painfully complex system. There are only three electorates in the ACT, but there are something like 140 forms of the ballot (so that donkey voting won't bias things). Also, ACT voters are sophisticated and many of us refuse to vote along party lines. Most of us recognise that our votes will actually make a difference (unlike when we vote for the Senate) and so we take it seriously.
In my electorate, there are five folks who will get elected so we had to number five squares at least for our vote to be valid. Beyond five, we can number as many or as few as we wish. A lot of people I know numbered all 20 squares. A small group of ratbags - amongst whom I count myself - carefully research candidates and find the most obnoxious purely to give them the signal honour of the highest number. These votes don't count, but it's quite possible that the first dozen of my votes are being trawled through, given where I gave them and how the quota system operates. My ballot, in fact, is one of the many that pass through the system over and again until my vote is actually counted. Giving someone no. 20 is pure ratbaggery, but making sure that more than 5 boxes are numbered is sensible voting in this system if one doesn't follow party lines.
Only 90% of eligible voters have voted#: it's a low turnout for our system, but most of the non-voters have legitimate reasons and the others will pay a small fine and complain about how the rest of us voted for someone dreadful.
The first preferences are basically counted. The cut-off for postal votes is tomorrow, so there may be a last few. There should be a result by now. In most systems, there would be, even if the result were a hung Parliament, which was our most recent Federal result.
We're not even close to a result, however. We're such a sophisticated electorate that we have managed to create the vast discrepancy of 46 votes between the two major parties in the primary vote. We have given neither party enough votes to win outright~ and we have carefully allocated our preferences in such a complex manner that the counting is slow and painstaking and continues for long hours every day.
Zed is looking a bit of a twerp for claiming such a solid lead over Labor last Saturday. His party has benefited by a significant swing, but Labor hasn't actually lost votes at all and has a small swing in their direction. All the minor parties and independents are the big losers. What's exceptionally fascinating about this is that, since we (as voters) have not voted along party lines, and since all our preferences count, no-one really knows where the votes that started off as benefiting the Greens or the Pirate Party or the Bullet Train for Canberra Party will end up. If they go to Liberal, then Liberal is in, and that's what Zed* assumed last Saturday, but mine certainly didn't go to Liberal, for I'm giving low preferences to the Libs until they work out what they're doing with a whole bunch of issues I care deeply about. Labor is vastly imperfect so it's not my party of choice, but Labor candidates went above Libs on my ballot. And this is one system where my preferences count. The question is, who else has done what I've done? A lot of people, it seems. This is why we know that the leaders of the two big parties got in (they achieved their quotas outright) but it's taking a long time to work out who else is there.
We'll know on Saturday, perhaps.
# which is not relevant, but it's the statistic that lured me into checking the count before final results are out - for those who really don't understand Australian elections, most Australians over 18 are eligible voters, that's why I took the photo of the vast crowds at my polling booth
~a candidate needs to reach a quota (a % of the vote - with first preferences counting more and complex formulae to allow for lower preferences for voters whose vote has not yet elected someone) to get elected and we didn't give enough candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes - in fact, we gave almost no candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes, so no party can form government from primary votes - we are so awesomely complicated.
* The reason that I keep referring to Zed rather than to Katy (and yes, we use first names in the ACT - I haven't met Zed, but I have met Katy several times, and she calls me Gillian and I called her predecessor Jon - we are a nation's capital that's a strange cross between city and country and this is one of the places it shows) is because it makes me very happy inside to know that there is a political leader whose name is the last letter of the alphabet. If this was the US, then he'd have to be call Zee, which is, in fact, even funnier.
