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A How-To Website For Australian Voters

Posted by timothy on from the voting-by-esp-was-ruled-out dept.

Twisted64 writes "If you're interested in voting below the line in the upcoming federal election in Australia, but don't want to waste time in the booth individually ranking up to 76 candidates (for the unfortunates in New South Wales), then Cameron McCormack's website may have what you need. The website allows voters to set their preferences beforehand, dragging and dropping Stephen Conroy at the bottom of the barrel and thrusting the Sex Party into pole position (as an utterly random example). Once preferences are set, the site can generate a PDF to be printed and taken to the booth." (More, below.) "There's also something to educate the above-the-line voters — if you check the box for your single party of choice, the site will fill out the effective party preferences below the line. This shows that a vote for The Climate Sceptics hands first preferences to Family First, and so on.

The website claims not to harvest voting information, but for the paranoid it recommends printing out a blank ballot sheet and copying your preferences from the screen. There is also a button to set up a donkey vote when in the ballot view, in case you have trouble counting from 1 to 100."

25 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. It's actually 84 by srjh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are actually 84 Senate candidates in NSW.

    I think the system is obviously pretty broken if the only choices are to number each of 84 boxes, go with a pre-decided list that the main parties have reached through secret preference deals, or have your vote rejected. At the moment you have to choose between two evils, and it has been made as inconvenient as possible for you to even make that choice rather than the party powerbrokers.

    Group voting tickets are just undemocratic. Preferential voting should only go as far as the voter wants - if your vote doesn't get distributed to any of your preferences, it should be discarded.

    1. Re:It's actually 84 by XDirtypunkX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, all you must do is turn up. If you want you can put an empty ballot in, or write a diatribe on the back, or as many of our younger citizens do, draw a massive dick and balls on it.

      Only attendance is compulsory, you don't actually have to cast a valid ballot.

    2. Re:It's actually 84 by srjh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, if you vote above the line, you're not selecting only one candidate, you're picking their pre-submitted preference list instead of your own. That's the main problem - the voters don't make the choice directly and the parties make deals or tactical decisions with their pre-submitted tickets. Slashdot's favourite Senator Stephen Conroy tried his luck at tactical voting in 2004 and accidentally elected a fundamentalist nutjob who got about 1% of the primary vote because they were trying to hold off a challenge from the Greens (when most Labor voters would have preferenced Greens first).

      A preference system is better than a first-past-the-post system, but the current system isn't perfect. Most Australian states currently go with optional preferential voting, which should be the way to go.

    3. Re:It's actually 84 by Capsaicin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Still, compulsory voting does compound the deficiencies in our system. Most people go with the easy way out because they see voting as a chore, most evident in the high proportion of donkey votes

      One or two percent is a "high" proportion? "Most voters" are taking the easy way out? Our system has "deficiencies" which are "compounded" by people actually voting?

      One is reminded of that Churchill quote about democracy being the worst form of government ...

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    4. Re:It's actually 84 by Capsaicin · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem with "donkey votes" is that politicians waste time arguing about who gets the top slot

      They don't. The position on the ballot paper is drawn by lot.

      The real problem with donkey votes is that the people casting them are negligent in fulfilling their public duty to vote.

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    5. Re:It's actually 84 by YoshiDan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you don't like having to vote then you shouldn't enroll. I never enrolled, didn't vote in the last 3 or 4 elections and I haven't even had a fine.

    6. Re:It's actually 84 by BluBrick · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Only attendance is compulsory, you don't actually have to cast a valid ballot.

      You don't even have to cast a ballot at all. I have refused to even take the ballot papers on more than one occasion. When the ballot papers are offered, I simply inform the scutineers that I have fulfilled my obligation merely by having my name crossed off the electoral roll - and walk out. They don't like it, but there's nothing they can do about it.

      --
      Ahh - My eye!
      The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
    7. Re:It's actually 84 by YoshiDan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The government knows I'm not enrolled. The AEC has been sending me enrolment forms ever since I turned 17 (so for the past 5 years). I just put them in my 'filing cabinet' (i.e. rubbish bin.) Crime or not they don't seem to care about it, otherwise they would have fined me or something by now.

    8. Re:It's actually 84 by Chuq · · Score: 2, Funny

      So I'm assuming you don't complain about the result then?

      --
      - Chuq
    9. Re:It's actually 84 by Capsaicin · · Score: 2, Informative

      You don't even have to cast a ballot at all.

      You do in fact!

      I have refused to even take the ballot papers on more than one occasion. When the ballot papers are offered, I simply inform the scutineers that I have fulfilled my obligation merely by having my name crossed off the electoral roll - and walk out. They don't like it, but there's nothing they can do about it.

      Sure there something they could do about it. They could put you on trial for a criminal breach of s245 of the C'th Electoral Act, or (more likely) they could fine you for the same. In reality they can't be bothered to do anything about it.

      It's an open secret that, s245(6) notwithstanding, they rarely bother perusing anyone who simply ignores the fine.

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    10. Re:It's actually 84 by Capsaicin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Technically, no. You're attendance confirms your intention to vote, and fulfils your obligations.

      Where you people get this stuff from?! IAAL, so since we are talking matters of electoral law, 'technically' to me means you show me an Act of parliament of a curial decision rather than just making this stuff up. Allow me to demonstrate.

      Technically, you can't be marked off the electoral role until after you receive your ballot. (C'th Electoral Act 1918, s232(1)).

      OR thus: Once you get your ballot paper you are required "without delay" to "retire alone to some unoccupied compartment of the booth, and there, in private, mark his or her vote on the ballot paper" (s233) [my emphasis]

      So technically you must enrol, attend, collect your ballot, be marked off, and vote. Turning up and having your name marked off without collecting a ballot, spoiling your ballot, and all these other suggestions are technically illegal.

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    11. Re:It's actually 84 by teh+kurisu · · Score: 2, Informative

      Do you have to mark all 84 boxes though?

      Here in Scotland we used STV in our most recent local council elections, which is basically preference voting with multi-member wards. Although we were able to number all the candidates 1-n, we were under no obligation to do so - if you only wanted to vote for one candidate you could just put a 1 by their name and it would still be counted.

      I only marked two candidates, because they were the only two (out of the eight or so on the list) that I had actually heard of.

    12. Re:It's actually 84 by TapeCutter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Family First is a far-right "Christian" party, their only senator is a self-confessed creationist, he became a vocal AGW "skeptic" after being fetted by US lobbyists such as the Hearland Institute and CEI. He is also a key proponent behind the intenet filter, at least he was until Conroy put his anti-abortion sponsers on the proposed blacklist.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    13. Re:It's actually 84 by srjh · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, you have to number them all, but I think with 84 candidates, they allow for one or two minor errors (e.g. having two people ranked 25 or missing a number).

      If you only mark two candidates, your vote will be thrown out completely.

  2. Slashdotted by Cameron+McCormack · · Score: 5, Informative

    OK that didn't take long. The site seems to be slashdotted already. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea for it to be serving 500KB @font-face referenced fonts from my little VPS. :) Once everybody's stopped clicking the link, I'll try moving the static data over to something that can handle it, like an Amazon S3 bucket.

    1. Re:Slashdotted by dropbearsrus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Cameron, love the site, it's a great tool. I managed to have a look before it was nuked.

      The AEC should have thought of this a long time ago!

      Now all we need is some information on those dozens of independent candidates. Beyond their name. Google could only help me with a few of them.

    2. Re:Slashdotted by Cameron+McCormack · · Score: 4, Funny

      If I could ssh to the machine, I would. :)

    3. Re:Slashdotted by Cameron+McCormack · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you're really keen, then the list of candidates that the AEC publishes includes telephone numbers for all of them, and email addresses for many of them. In case you can't find any useful information online, you can always ask them their position on the issues you think are relevant.

  3. Just to be clear by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Informative

    Non Australian voters might be confused by this article because it gives the impression that you need a HOWTO to be able to vote. But thats not true. Just give people you don't like high numbers, and people you do like low numbers. Its still pretty simple.

    You can tell from my sig. Labour candidates are getting high numbers from me in the senate this year.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  4. Another Below the Line helper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually here's one that actually scales:
    https://www.belowtheline.org.au/

    1. Re:Another Below the Line helper by Cameron+McCormack · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, this site's good too. Had I known it existed a few weeks ago when I started working on mine I may not have bothered. ;)

  5. Google Docs Party Comparison by pbarker · · Score: 2, Informative

    The following document is a summary of the parties and their positions on various subjects. Publically modifiable, so if you can contribute, please do.

    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgwGFHFd0TUIdExCbkNZWllUaVRsRG9yZXVVTXhUN0E&hl=en&authkey=CJu2lp8P#gid=0

  6. So why isn't it an officiel site? by Lorens · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why doesn't the AU government provide the service? Why is it left to some random website to provide a means to vote more easily?

    1. Re:So why isn't it an officiel site? by Biogenesis · · Score: 4, Informative

      They do. They're called "how to vote cards". As you walk into the polling booth you're handed bits of paper from people representing many of the major parties. They contain facsimiles of the ballot papers which have been filled in to their liking, allowing you to copy the vote your favourite party wants without thinking.

      --
      ...just so Google finds it.
  7. Voting Above and Below the line by ras · · Score: 2, Informative

    A wise person votes both above and below the line. If you do that and stuff your below the line vote up then your above the line vote gets used instead.

    See http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/07/how-to-vote-guide.html, in the last section titled What happens if I vote both above and below the line? .