Australia Elects Libertarian-Leaning Senator (By Accident)

LordLucless writes "Australia's Liberal Democratic Party, which describes itself as a classically liberal, free-market libertarian party, has had their candidate for New South Wales elected to the upper house, with roughly double the number of votes they were expecting. In part, this has been attributed to them being placed first on the ballot paper (which is determined by a random process) and similarities in name to one of the major parties, the Liberal Party of Australia."

Comments

Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not.

[Mitchell314]

In the US, the losing presidential candidates tend to concede defeat gracefully. And grace is relative; regularly changing power from one party to another with virtually no violence is unusual in the history of human civilizations.

Re:Austrailians as stupid as Americans?

[WarJolt]

New slashdot poll.
How many hours did you spent researching candidates?
1. 0. I don't vote.
2. 0. I just vote along party lines.
3...5 The rest of the options are probably statistically insignificant anyway so I won't even put them.

Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

regularly changing power from one party to another with virtually no violence is unusual in the history of human civilizations.

That's because the same party (i.e. group of people) stays in power, what changes is the figurehead they give orders to.

Re:As someone who worked at the elections

[MozeeToby]

Moral of the story is randomly choosing the order of the names on the ballot a single time then using that order on all the ballots doesn't actually accomplish anything.

It's like making a random number generator with a single fair dice roll.

Re:Appalling

[AK Marc]

Any system that lets someone be elected by accident is absolutely appalling.

Yet it was done in the US in 2000 and 2004. "accidental" votes (hanging chads, pregnant chads, etc.) got counted or discarded, affecting the election.

Re:Not only by accident...

[LordLucless]

They used the system as it was designed to be used. The major's are just pissed because they intended that it only be them that got to play that game. If you want electoral reform, you need to be elected under the corrupt system before you can vote to change it. Refusing to participate accomplishes nothing.