Australia 2007

[StateBoiler]

Can someone explain to me how the transferred voting works and if a voter transfers his vote once, is he allowed to transfer again?

[StateBoiler]

Can someone explain to me how the transferred voting works and if a voter transfers his vote once, is he allowed to transfer again?

A voter ranks all candidates.  First the first preferences are counted (ie, at the first count each ballot is counted for the candidate that had "1" marked next to his name).  If somebody gets over 50% of the vote s/he is elected at this point, otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated and his/her votes get redistributed by looking at whom the voters marked as their number 2 choice. Again, if at that point somebody gets over 50% of the vote the counting is over, otherwise the next outsider is chosen for elimination and the process continues.  In the end only two candidates remain and one of them is bound to get the majority. I believe, there is no official legal way to deliberately  "exhaust"  the votes (ie just express a partial preference), though I might be wrong here, as this varies in some state-level elections.

Of course, if a voter's top choices are all candidates from minor parties, it is likely that his vote is going to be transferred many times. Thus, if a voter ranked

1. John Doe (Independent)
2. Jane Roe (Independent)
3. Mike Noname (Family First)
4. Mary Forgothername (Australian Democrat)
5. Woody Tree (Green)
6. Jack Outback (National)
7. Hon. Michael Abbot-and-Costello (Liberal)
8. Kim Challenger (Labor)

what is, really, most likely to matter is that he put the A&C above the Challenger. The rest of his effort is, mainly, about self-expression and complicating the job of vote counters.  But, perhaps, Mr. Outback gets Mr. A&C eliminated, in which case the vote would, in the end, count for him. Or else, Mr. Challenger gets eliminated first - in which case, once again, the vote counts for the Outback. In the House election it's extremely unlikely that anything else happens, though, on occasion, independents do win.

Thanks.

Do Australians like this system or do the two major parties want to get rid of it?

The arguments against IRV in the U.S. is that we are too stupid to do it. I'm a third party guy of sorts so I don't buy that. But I have personally seen the NAACP say that the state government trying to get my city to practice IRV as a test case was racist cause it would disenfranchise blacks (city is split 50-50).

[StateBoiler]

To be honest, the electorate have been waiting a while to get rid of him. Yes, the economy has done well under him, but as a whole people think Howard has damaged other elements of Australia's society. Unfortunately for him, he's fallen into the trap of people who do their jobs too well, people believe things will carry on regardless of their presence - Polls suggest people this.

Also the government is well behind the people on climate change, Iraq (even though it's not a major issue), social values etc etc.

But the absolute killer for Howard was his industrial relations reforms - many people saw Howard after that as they hadn't before - ideological and fanatical. They don't him like that. The sizeable number in polls suggest that while they might not be worse off, they think the policy does affect too many people in a negative fashion. Plus 11 1/2 years is a long time.

The U.S. news stories I saw on this yesterday had headlines something like this:

"Howard, Iraq War ally, calls Australia elections"

So regardless of what actually happens, if Howard loses, it'll probably be interpreted as "Australia rejects Iraq War".

Not that you'd care, just don't be surprised in a month if you come upon a U.S. story that harps on it after Howard loses.


What did Howard do with his industrial reforms?

Another question. I know that Howard is in a tough fight for his home seat. Lets assume in an unlikely scenario that Howard loses his home seat but the Coalition maintain their majority. Does the Liberal #2 become Prime Minister?

[StateBoiler]

I just want the bloody thing to be over.

I think that's a very common feeling around the traps at the moment.

Oh come on, you guys are going through nothing. Over here, we've been in election mode for six months and have another 12 months to go!