Australia uses preferential voting in all lower house seats and a modified version for the senate.

There seems to be a lot of cunfusion about how preferential voting works. People can't get their head around whether they are voting 'for' or 'against' a certain candidate. You can really only say you are voting for your first preference and against your last. To try to put all the other candidates into these piles is clearly absurd. You are not voting for or against them, you are ranking them in order of preference. People get upset because they think they are being forced to vote 'for' someone they don't like. This is not true. Your vote only goes to your second preference after your first preference is excluded from the race.

The Americans call our system 'instant runoff' voting, in reference to how it replaces ana dditional runoff election. It helps if you think of the process as many elections, rather than one. Say for the sake of argument there are ten candidates. That means there are effectively nine elections. The first election has ten candidates, the second nine and so on until the last election which has two candidates. At each election you get to vote again for your favourite candidate out of the remaining runners. Viewed this way, you realise that your vote only ever goes to your favourite out of those that are actually running. This can never work against your preferred candidate, as your vote only goes to someone else after they are no longer participating.

More information:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/electoral-reform/electoral-reform.html

The surprising thing I often find is that people think that a proclamation like "The Greens are directing their preferences towards the ALP" actually has any affect on their (lower house) vote, and consequently refuse to vote [1] Greens, because they would prefer the Liberals over the ALP. But it's rubbish...the ONLY thing that matters is what order you put on your own ballot paper. All "directing preferences" means in the lower house is what appears on the "How to Vote card".
Further, if you give your 1st preference vote to a major party, the reality is that the rest of your votes will count for nothing. In fact, voting [1] Liberals and [2] Greens is as good as Voting [1] Liberals and voting [6] Greens. The former is not sending any sort of message to the Liberal party that you think they need better environmental policies. If you really want to send that message, vote [1] Greens, and [2] Liberals. There's no real risk of the Greens actually winning a lower house seat (because the majority of voters give very little thought to their voting at all), but if the Liberals win the seat knowing that they relying on a large swathe of Green preferences, there's at least a small chance that will have some affect on their policy making.

Tired of politicians never listening to a word you have to say?

The Australian Government is thinking about setting up a 'blog' to let the public have their say on public policy.

Have your say on what shape it should take here. It's just a quick survey.

www.openforum.com.au/Survey

Yes, it's for real.

It makes sense dnicholson, but don't you think that the system is confusing at best?
You shouldn't have a degree in election studies to vote the way you would like it to take effect.

What currently happens is exactly as you described the "wrong way" of sending a message. It is not the first time that for the sake of "logic" we throw good old common sense out the window. It is just annoying that this should happen to the way we vote.

Other countries trialled our system (France I believe included), found unfair or unworkable, we are the only one left with it. It would not allow ever for any small party to emerge with any significant amount of votes, even if 20% voted for them [1] and others wouldn't prefer them for [2].

And consider this. If you REALLY decided to put 360 or so candidates in order on the spot that is 360! factored. Even if it only takes seconds considering each, that is an astronomical amount of seconds. Comes up to many years actually. And if an old person wants to put in the numbers just in order? Chances are he or she could easily make a mistake somewhere even by leaving out a number and putting another twice. With the best of intentions, his or her vote wouldn't count either. How many of such votes are discarded every 3 years?

Why not number just 1 to 10 or number parties instead of people. That was quite a sensible proposal from Bob Brown.

And I am not sure how the regional weighing of votes works in the voter's favour. I mean great majority aspired and voted for a republic. Somehow we still don't have it ...

The one-round voting system may be flawed. The argument for it I found was cost saving. Hmmm. What cost you can put on fair voting that does not disadvantage by party size or voter age? I say we should have the decency to do at least some patchwork. It is long overdue.

"You shouldn't have a degree in election studies to vote the way you would like it to take effect.

You don't. You just rank the candidates in order of preference. Whatever candidate you would most like to win, you rank first.

"Other countries trialled our system (France I believe included), found unfair or unworkable

I doubt that very much. There is a gradual drift towards various forms of ranked choice and runoff elections.

"we are the only one left with it

It's the other way round. We were one of the first, but others are switching to it.

"It would not allow ever for any small party to emerge with any significant amount of votes, even if 20% voted for them [1] and others wouldn't prefer them for [2].

If they got 20% of the votes, they got 20% of the votes. Not sure where you are copying and pasting this from, but it is wrong. Alternatives like first past the post that let you win with less than 50% of the vote can hardly be described as fairer.

"And consider this. If you REALLY decided to put 360 or so candidates in order on the spot that is 360! factored.

No it isn't. That's what would happen if you voted multiple times. You only vote once.

"Why not number just 1 to 10 or number parties instead of people.

This is similar to voting above the line in the senate.

"How many of such votes are discarded every 3 years?

Less than 5% in the senate.

"how it works?" it works to assure labor or liberals control of reps, without the need to consult minority views.

this results in major decisions being taken in secret by caucus, without public discussion. the end result is oligarchy, with a figleaf of triennial voting for the credulous fools who swallow the description of their activity as 'democracy'.