Comment on Where will my vote go?
eureka@aussie.zone 1 week ago
(only addressing this part, as the other comments have the important part covered)
I feel like this should be a legal obligation, that we are all given this kind of information in a flowchart. But I can’t find it. Can anybody help?
I’d say the Australian Electoral Commission is the most authentic resource for getting facts about our election (seeing as they run it). I wish some of this information was shoved in our faces more.
The information sheets PDFs linked on this page summarise how the vote count works: www.aec.gov.au/learn/preferential-voting.htm
Further reading: The preferential voting system we use in Australia is Instant-Runoff Voting, but you’ll often hear it just called ‘preferential voting’ here (other preferential voting systems exist, e.g. Borda count).
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 week ago
Not optional preferences.
eureka@aussie.zone 1 week ago
Whoops, I was going from memory based on last election. You’re right.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 week ago
Federally, the Reps has always had compulsory preferential. Things are different at some state and council elections though. For example, in Queensland state elections it’s compulsory, but Council elections have optional preferential. It was an election promise by the LNP to change it to optional preferential in both state and council elections. Because optional preferential helps the LNP a huge amount, by causing some Greens and Labor voters to have their votes exhausted rather than going to the other.