Ludwig is absolutely right:
Optional Voter preferencing is the most democratic form of voting (while compulsory preferences being by far the least).

I'm glad that changed in NSW.

Thanks King Hazza. I’m pleased that someone can appreciate what I am saying.

I’ve condemned CPV and espoused OPV a number of times on OLO over the last five years. While a few people have agreed, the level of interest has been miserably small! And yet it is of fundamental importance that we have the right voting system in place – a system which gives the voter the best democratic expression of their wishes, without biasing the whole system towards the big parties and away from newcomers and political diversity… and without.. for goodness sake.. STEALING some peoples’ vote and making them count WHERE THEY DON’T WANT THEM TO!!

Helen and Klaas, are you interested in discussing this matter further?

Yes, I am interested in that. No doubt optional preferential voting is slightly better than compulsory preferential voting but this is only a minor improvement in a system that is basically flawed on two counts: 1. Most of all, the system is based on single-member districts. This is the main reason why we have a two-party system. 2. We have compulsory voting in Australia. Essentially that compels people to vote for either the one or the other major party regardless of how many minor parties and Independent candidates may throw their hat in the ring. 3.25 m. people who could have voted in the 2010 federal election did not vote, in spite of compulsory enrollment and compulsory voting. What does that tell you? People are sick of this system. Would either of the major parties ASK the people if they want proportional representation? NO, they will not ask, will not explain it, so this society will just battle on with a dysfunctional, undemocratic, costly electoral system pretending it to be a great system. Ah you'll say an evenly balanced Parliament of two major parties that's a great thing. No longer in NSW, far from it. Moreover, a great Opposition leader is rarely a government leader. It requires entirely different skills. But look at the federal sphere. The spectacle of childish, infantile, combative discourse that passes for parliamentary debate there is the direct result of the single-member district system. I rest my case.

Indeed Ludwig and Klaas, you point out even further flaws of our system.
Personally, another for me is the merging of our Parliament and our executive House in the ballot paper.

I find it fundamentally wrong that we are not allowed to explicitly declare who we want in the ministries (if we could elect the separate ministers for a job it would remove the waste of voting in a party solely for one or two fields of credibility at the expense of others).

Worse is that the 'local representation' of a parliament falls down when it means:
1- I am not allowed to vote for a candidate I like because he/she happens to live outside my electorate.
2- The 'local representative' will become a Minister over the entire country- who have absolutely no rights to vote for/against him so long as his own constituents are happy.
3- On the flipside, a party collapses if its one popular member outside the electorate, is put at risk within the electorate (why Labor decided to put that useless news reporter in Bennelong during the election, just to fade into the background afterwards).

It's a screwy system that rather fails to put the will of the people into our governance, but turns politics into some ridiculous game of manipulation.

And don't get me started on redrawing electorates.

Needless to say, I prefer that the two bodies be separated and scrutinized by voters on their own supposed merits (though I would personally scrap the Parliament altogether if we already have an elected senate and hypothetically, a directly-elected Ministerial executive).

Klaas

I'm intrigued by your 3.25m figure, where did it come from? The AEC reports 14,086,869 enrolments and 13,131,667 votes at the 2010 election, implying 955,202 enroled people did not vote. Are you saying over 2 million eligible people are not enrolled?

http://results.aec.gov.au/15508/Website/HouseTurnoutByState-15508.htm

Ok, here we go.

Costar and Browne, two seasoned academics.

http://inside.org.au/missing-votes-the-2010-tally/

Klaas