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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."
In the last 30 years, when has the losing party every accepted the loss gracefully?
... but what else is he supposed to say?
Sure, the article says "Mr Leyonhjelm accepts his party probably gained votes in error, with voters thinking they were choosing the Liberals."
When the people make a massive mistake in democracy, it's still their decision to make. Look at the american elections for the last 20 years. Both sides will say the people made mistakes.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
In my experience, you get better government when there are more opinions at the table. The occasional election of people from minor parties (Greens, Pirates, Libertarians, etc...) makes it more likely for there to be objections to the really awful policies that the mainstream politicos try to force through. Even if you don't necessarily agree with what the guys have to say, they're probably a better choice than the typical minions of the expected 'lesser evil'. As such, it's good news when these sorts of guys get in... even if it was possibly 'an accident'.
Once the count was on and I started to see a few more votes in that pile for the liberal democrats, I knew it was going to take a sizable proportion off the mainstream party in error. Having a look at statistics though, where I was working and surrounding regions had informal vote rates of 12% to 15% (much higher than the national average). It's also a labor party stronghold, which is the party who just got knocked out.
It's also worth pointing out that the particular ballot paper was enormous, over 1m long, 110 candidates for 6 positions, 35 parties and can be very confusing to explain to people who barely speak english, on how to make their vote formal, let alone read the 6.5 point print on who they're voting for.
Moral of the story is, you can't help stupid people, but you can let them to vote... (NB: Australia has compulsory attendance to vote and compulsory preferential voting in federal elections)
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.
I spent about 15hrs going through all the various policies from all the senate candidates. It truly was a difficult decision who to put last... and really quite depressing to have parties like the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, who only got a very small number of primary votes make it through to the senate on preferences.
... wait, what?
Any system that lets someone be elected by accident is absolutely appalling. Australia would do well to reevaluate their system so that this doesn't happen in the future.
Politics and national leadership is far too important to be decided by absurd errors.
You know that any system where you ask common people to decide things will allow for stuff to happen by accident, right?
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
The Australian Labor party is what you'd call a liberal party.
The Australian Liberal party is a centre-right conservative party,
And this Liberal Democratic party is closer to your republicans.
Got it?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
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.
Learn to love Alaska
Election of this candidate was no accident. This is not first-past-the-post voting and the individual did not gain a quota outright. He won because other parties passed their votes to him after they were eliminated. As the LDP candidate points out, the senate voting preference system is open, well documented and the specific preferences are available to the public for weeks before the election. If electors cannot be bothered to vote with their own preferences (an admittedly tedious affair) then they take the parties preferences as published. In this case, there were tight preference deals between the litany of single-issue and minor parties. That minor parties can use that system to their own advantage is neither a surprise nor unexpected. It's equally naive to think the major parties do not play the same game... they are just not as "looney" or "fringe" and less worthy of media sensationalism.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
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.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
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.
I am totally for optional preferences above the line, but I think it's dubious to think of the primary vote as somehow indicative of a party's validity. We have a preferential system for a reason, and that's because first-past-the-post is unrepresentative - it forces the vote into a two-party system.
We need to get people allocating their preferences themselves, not suggesting that preferences are somehow less valid that the primary vote.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
You don't have to mark your ballot, and even if you did, that would require them to check your ballots before you dropped it in the box, which they don't do.
You can drop in a blank ballot, draw a penis on it, or whatever you like; if it doesn't follow the rules it's called "informal" and not counted.
What you're describing is still quite common - it's called the donkey vote (numbering the ballot from the top), is a valid vote, and actually gives the top candidates a slight edge.
If anyone was looking for evidence that straight ticket (aka party line) voters aren't so bright, here it is.
You don't actually have to put anything in the Ballot - if you were so inclined you could simply sign off your name and put the blank ballot papers straight into the box and nothing would be said.
As a side note: People must dislike the Australian Electoral Commission vote counters because it's not like a politician is ever going to see the penises and expletives they marked their ballots with.
As a vote counter I can assure you that during the long and tedious process of counting votes, the pictures of penises and swear words give us a chuckle and lift our spirits.
...there is no sig...
There's three reasons for that:
- The lower house determines who the PM is, which is the thing everyone really wants to know
- We only elect half the Senate at a time, so there's less of a shift than there is in the lower house where everything's up for grabs
- The new Senators don't take their seats for almost a year
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Sorry, but no. There was a question about the 2000 election, but Bush still won when the media conducted their own recounts*. What "controversy" are you referring to in 2004? Or are you just disagreeing with the outcome, again?
Newspapers' recount shows Bush prevailed
* It's worth pointing out that the hotspot for that controversy about the "chads" took place in a county controlled by Democrats.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
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.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face