Ludwig, I'm not sure what you mean by a mandate then. Even if you have a hundred choices, if 50% of the electorate votes for just one of those options, then it seems to me the electorate has made it's choice clearly and unambiguously. The government then has a mandate to act accordingly.

The problem is that an electorate, being an enormous committee made up of diverse members, is rarely capable of producing such a clear result and instead, preference or other electoral systems have to be used to contrive a meaningful result.

What I'd like to hear are how people think Australian society could be made more democratic without compounding government inefficiency?

The meaningfull result is not contrived.

What do you think of this idea?

http://www.ozpolitic.com/electoral-reform/electoral-reform.html#direct-democracy

Kalin

A true mandate is a clear choice made by the majority for a government to act on their behalf.

While it is possible that a mandate could be won with far less than 50% of the vote, it is also possible that it cannot be won with well over 50%.

If voters feel that it is a case of voting for the lesser/least of two or more evils, or for less than ideal candidates or parties, then they are hardly intending to give a mandate to the one they vote for, are they. They are voting because they have to, despite not liking the choices available.

If voters disagree with any actions of a government that they have voted for, then they can rightly say that they didn’t give the government a mandate to act in that manner.

Freediver,

Thanks for the link. Some very interesting ideas, especially the direct democracy and the right to shift support to alternate candidates at any time. That might just have a lot of merit. The big obstacle for such substantial electoral reform in Australia, however, is that our system works well enough so that it would be hard to persuade people to give up the existing system in favour of something so 'radical.'

Have saved the link and will read and think more. Great website.

Ludwig,

You are right about a 50% plus majority not providing a mandate if the choices available do not reflect the realistic options. eg, if you limit the election to either a vote for the Australian Democrats or the Nazi Party probably the Democrats will get more than 50% (at least I hope so) but this would hardly be a mandate.

Nevertheless, if the options put to the electorate are a fair reflection of the realistic true options available then it seems to me any vote over 50% would be a mandate.

I'm also interested in hearing how you can have a real mandate with less than 50% of the vote as you've suggested?

Kalin, I can see that a mandate could be won with less than 50% of the vote for the winning candidate if the vote is based on a single issue, there are three or more candidates, and the winner and one or more of the losing candidates basically have very similar positions and together score more than 50% of the vote.

This would effectively mean that the voters would give a mandate for a particular course of action, but not a majority (>50%) vote to the winning candidate. This could easily happen, as candidates with similar platforms often split the vote.

This vote-splitting phenomenon on similar stances could easily result in a candidate with one particular view being elected while the mandate effectively lay with the losers. For example in a three-horse race, the two losing candidates could have very similar stances and could together score more than 50% of the vote.

Ludwig,

I agree with your example, but that is what is flawed about the "first past the post" system.. it can often split the vote if there are multiple candidates standing on one, or similar platforms. This is exactly the sort of thing the preferential voting system is meant to overcome.

Unfortunately, the ethos of the preferential system is that you elect the member least disliked, rather than the candidate you want. Which for most peope would be a vote for the status quo. It's much better than the first past the post if you want to keep extremist parties out but if the system needs reform, but no one can decide how, the voting system will favour the status quo.

Seems this thread's gone silent unfortunately. Time to start a new thread perhaps? Demos, I gather that's your thing?