thanks Klaas - interesting analysis

I'm not sure all the informal votes and no-shows are disenchanted, but the growing trend of these can reasonably be attributed to disenchantment or at least indifference

<< 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: >>

Klaas, I agree that there are some other pretty huge flaws in the system, but all else being equal, I can't imagine how OPV could be only slightly better than CPV.

I’d say they are absolutely poles apart. CPV is basically a RORT. We just simply should not be having a system where for many voters, their preferences as marked on the ballot paper are not their preferences at all!

In the last election wanted to put Liberal and Labor at the bottom, to make sure that my vote didn’t count for either of them. But if I’d lodged a formal vote, it would have ended up counting for which ever major party I put second last!! How despicable is that?

So for any voters who specifically wanted to vote for a minor party or independent, because they didn’t want to vote for either of the two big dinosaurs, simply couldn’t, in most cases, without their vote being STOLEN and placed exactly where they didn’t want it to count. CPV is just UNBELIEVABLY bad!!

<< Most of all, the system is based on single-member districts. This is the main reason why we have a two-party system. >>

Sorry, I don’t get the connection.

<< 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 >>

Why would compulsory voting compel people to choose between the Libs or Labs? CPV basically forces us to do this, but OPV certainly doesn’t. So, compulsory voting with the OPV system, as we have in Qld and NSW, doesn't compel people to vote for the majors at all.

I’m not sure what you mean regarding proportional representation, Klaas. Isn’t our electoral system a pretty reasonable type of proportional representation? How would you like it to be organised?

Thank you for comments, very helpful!

I agree with Klaas that one of my arguments is for simplicity and uniformity of Australian voting systems. But I also support compulsory preferential voting, although I asserted that position here without arguing for it, ie my broader position is that Australian voting systems should be made as uniform as possible - AND that the central feature of that uniformity should be compulsory preferential voting. I don't mean that people should be prosecuted for not marking every square, but that a vote should be counted as informal unless every square is marked so as to indicate preference. This doesn't mean I am voting for people I dislike, eg say P Hanson is on a ballot of 6 candidates, I am indicating clearly that I prefer that she not be elected by assigning her the number 6. It is quite mistaken in that case to say that I am voting FOR her.

I fail to see how preferential voting leads inevitably to a 2 party system. Eg, check out the 2011 results in Balmain (http://vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/la/la_district_summary-Balmain.htm). There are 3 parties with similar counts: Firth ALP 10392 (30.7%), Falk Libs 10942 (32.3%) and Parker Greens 10306 (30.4%). This is not a 2-party result, rather it reflects the strength of the Greens for various non-electoral reasons. Now imagine that we have first past the post voting. If above were the final count, Falk would be elected – despite the fact that he has only a third of the vote. If this were a French presidential election, there would be a run off between Firth and Falk, and Firth would win because she would probably pick up Parker voters who don't like her, but like Falk even less. A way of explaining preferential voting is that it is like an instant run-off, the result being the candidate who is least disliked by the majority of voters. I think that is a better result than a victor who is disliked by over 60% of the voters, eg in the Balmain case.

So I'm wondering what the problem is here?

Sorry, I couldn't sign the preceding post because of the word limit. I wanted to add a couple of points.

First, unless I'm mistaken, Klaas seems to assume that proportional representation is an alternative system to preferential voting. In fact, of course, PR is often used in conjunction with some form of preferential voting (eg in the Australian Senate, and other Australian upper houses).

Two party systems are not the inevitable result of preferential voting at all, and non-preferential systems regularly (re)produce a two party system – as in the US, which was the point of my final note about Gore and Nader. If preferential voting (or even the innovative "fusion voting" argued for by my friend Sarah Siskind, see http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/Sarah_Siskind) had been in place in 2000, Gore would have been elected, even without considering the voter fraud etc so well detailed in other analyses of that election.

Klaas cites the valuable article of Costar et al. that 3.25 m. people who could have voted in the 2010 federal election did not vote, and asks, "What does that tell you? People are sick of this system." The Costar article does not tell you that at all, but advances various reasons for the shortfall, most to do with the enrolment roll not actually being comprehensive.

Finally, I believe the introduction of optional preferential voting will effectively lead to the institution of first past the post voting in Australia, and part of my evidence for this is looking at how to vote cards of the ALP and Libs in NSW in 2010: the HTVs I saw all indicated only one marked square, that of the party candidate. In those circumstances, the emerging bud of a three party electoral system at least in inner city Sydney could be nipped very quickly. I think there is a clear link between first past the post and two party dominance of the political system (with some exceptions, which I don't have enough words to analyse here!)

thanks again for an intelligent debate on this! Helen

Further commentary in response to recent questions.

The principle cause of the two-party system is the single -member-electoral district, NOT preferential voting. Where only one candidate can be successful the race tends to between the two strongest parties. These parties were formed from the late 19th century onwards representing capital and labour. By 1910 this situation has chrystalised although there were some other minority interests. Even geographical representation - the states in the Senate was also dominated by the two party system. The introduction of the alternative vote (or the Australian vote so called, provided an ILLUSION of greater democratic choice. Minor parties and Independent would therefore seem to have a small chance of being elected as the one candidate for an electoral district. This VERY RARELY happened, the two major parties dominated the scene ever since 1910 although at times the Conservative parties split and reinvented themselves as in the beginning of WWII. The financing of these two major parties also was far more substantial than that of any smaller party that wanted to have a go. The smaller parties that did get up after WWII were essentially split offs of one of the two dominant parties. Corporate donations basically always flowed mainly to the major parties, in recent times even the ALP takes huge donations from business corporations who are not much interested in supporting minor parties that will not be represented in Government. Optional preferential voting is not much different than "first -past-the-post, if you only vote for your first minor party choice. Compulsory preferential means that your preferences will all be declared and will end up finally with one of the major party candidates (which they would missed with optional preferential voting. Real diversity is only achieved with multi-member electoral districts where small parties can realistically achieve a quota, that essential the number of seats available divided by the number of candidates to be elected. I'll provide a sample of the Dutch Parliament elected on the basis of P. R in July 2010 if there is room here:

There is not. I'll make a separate post.

<< …I also support compulsory preferential voting… >

But WHY Isabel, erm… Helen??

<< …the central feature of that uniformity should be compulsory preferential voting >>

Why do you tie CPV to uniformity? We could have uniformity within our national, state and local government elections just as easily with OPV, or FPTP.

<< … a vote should be counted as informal unless every square is marked so as to indicate preference >>

Wow, I so strongly disagree.

<< This doesn't mean I am voting for people I dislike >>

Oh yes it can mean that. If you like only one candidate and dislike the rest, but your candidate gets a small vote, then as well as counting for that candidate, your compulsory preferences will mean your vote will count where you specifically don’t want it to.

If you really dislike the major parties and put them last and second last, then no matter who else you might vote for, your vote could very well end up filtering down and counting for one of the parties that you are specifically voting against! Yeah, I repeat myself, but hey, how amazing it is that within a so-called democracy, such a thing can happen?

I’ve used strong words about CPV – ‘steal’, ‘rort’, ‘despicable’, ‘complete and utter affront to democracy’.

No one’s disagreeing. So if people can see that CPV is strongly flawed, then what on earth is its advantage over OPV?

So, why would you not advocate optional preferential voting??