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:Austrailians as stupid as Americans?

[Capsaicin]

Did you use senate.io? Really great tool.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of voters will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election. I think perhaps the most egregious outcome is the probable election of a WA Senator who received less the 0.25% of the primary vote!

As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.

Re:Primer on OZ Politics for Americans

[LordLucless]

Actually, the reason we don't have a republic was that the referendum was Monarchy vs Republic with a Politically-Appointed President, which eliminated anyone who wanted a popularly elected president from the debate.

Re:As someone who worked at the elections

[Any Web Loco]

I worked the election too and saw the same thing. A huge number of people came up to me asking which ones were "the Liberals" (meaning the Liberal National coalition, rather than the Liberal Democrats), and of course wasn't allowed to tell them, but it was pretty clear to myself and the election officers I was working with that people saw the word "Liberal" at the start of the ballot paper and then just ticked that box.