The Australian voting system is extraordinarily democratic and efficient. It is built around two features - compulsory voting and its preferential voting system.

How the System Works
Voting is required by law for all Australians over 18 and fines are imposed for failure to do so at all elections. To enable all voters to carry out what is both a democratic right and a public duty, there is always a voting centre nearby and provision is made for those who cannot leave their home on the day or who are away from their area to cast their vote through postal, pre-poll and absentee voting.

Voters are expected to mark their ballot papers by numbering all choices in order of preference, beginning with the number 1 for their first preference. Failure to number every box makes the ballot paper informal. For example:

This method of voting means that fifty percent of the formal votes plus one vote will win the election.

At the first counting stage, only the first preferences, the number 1s, are counted. For the purposes of explanation, let’s suppose that the count results as follows:

Bloggs      1000        
Muggins   3000      The winner must get at least 4001
Smithers   3500       votes to win the election, based
Trotter        500       on the 8000 formal votes received.
Informal      100

    As Muggins and Smithers have the largest number of votes, Trotter first and later Bloggs are progressively eliminated and their second or third preferences transferred to the other two.
In the example ballot paper shown in the table above. The first preference goes to Trotter. As he is the first to be eliminated, the second preference is passed to Bloggs. But Bloggs, having the second lowest number of votes, is also eliminated and the third preference is passed on to Smithers, where it stops. At the end of the count, the  result might be something like this:

Muggins   4200   (who would be declared the winner)
Smithers   3800

    Some states allow voters to number fewer than all boxes.  In an instance where a voter only marks two boxes, preferences are passed on and may reach the point where there are no more preferences to be counted. At this point  they fall into a category of exhausted. These voters effectively do not cast a vote for either of the two major candidates.

The Outcomes of the Preferential Voting System

    The obvious advantage of the system is that the winner must obtain over half of all votes cast, instead of  just winning the largest block of primary votes. An elected candidate therefore has genuinely been elected by an absolute majority.

Another outcome, and no less significant, is that candidates can  stand for election on single issues ( e.g. the environment, anti-gambling, gun control, etc.). Although they don’t expect to win, they can attract enough votes to make the issue they stand for of electoral significance. By having the power, through their How-to-vote card, to nominate another candidate as the preferred recipient of their supporters’ second preferences, they encourage other candidates to take a stand on the issue.

Consider this example. If a candidate, campaigning on a “No airports near Sydney!” platform receives 3% of the primary vote, he can’t win the election, but, in a close count, his preferences which might be as much as 2% of the total votes, can determine which of the two major candidates will win. However if the major candidates  want him to advise his supporters to direct their second preferences their way, they will need to offer policies on the “No airports” issue that are attractive. It is the cause that’s the winner.

The reverse side of this coin is that voters can be confident that their vote will eventually return to one of the two major parties that genuinely have hopes of winning government but they can send a message to politicians on single issues by way of their first voting preference. In other words they do two things with their vote, indicate the importance of a cause and vote for a party to be the government.

It is a powerful tool that voters in Australia have learned to use very effectively, especially during by-elections when a change of government is usually not a possibility.

It should be noted that there is always the possibility, remote as it might be, that a single issue party will win enough primary votes actually to win a seat in parliament. This strengthens the cause but has the potential of frustrating those people who expected their preferences to go to one of the two major parties. In recent years this has been common in upper house elections which use proportional representation as their method of election and which require a lower quota of votes.

Using the Preferential Voting System to advantage

     As ordinary Australian citizens, in harmony with others, you can use this system to support a particular cause by doing one or more of the following:

• Scrutinise the list of single issue candidates in an election before you cast your vote. If you give one of them your first preference make sure that your chain of preferences includes at least one of the two likely major candidates. Otherwise, your vote and your influence as a single voter will be wasted.
  
  
• Team up with others to field a single issue candidate in the election. This may involve registering as a political party. The numbers are important as you will need money to campaign. If you win voter support, the major parties will take notice, if not affecting the current election then the policies of the next one.
  
  
• Join one of the major political parties. Influence their policies and encourage them to anticipate the trends in support of third parties.

Warning!  If the preferential voting system can highlight to the major parties how significant a particular issue is in the mind of the voting public, it can also reveal how little support a single issue can receive. Do not rush into fielding a single issue candidate unless you are sure there is a groundswell of support.

Some notes on Proportional Representation in Upper House Elections

     The federal Senate and the NSW Legislative Council use proportional representation as their basis for election. This differs from the system shown above only in that a candidate needs only to obtain a proportion e.g a tenth if there are ten places to be filled, of the total number of votes in order to win a seat.

The preferential voting system continues to work in this form of election but there is an increased chance that single issue parties will actually win a seat. That chance increases with the number of seats to be contested.