Talk:Electoral system of Australia/Archive 2006

Abolition of compulsory voting

 * "Occasionally conservative politicians or libertarian intellectuals argue for the abolition of compulsory voting on philosophical grounds, but no government has ever attempted to abolish it."

I thought I remember being pleased the Australian Democrats voted with the opposition to block something like this during the Howard government. I'll do a Google and Hansard search soonish... Mark Hurd 02:44, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am pretty certain that no government has ever introduced a bill to abolish compulsory voting. I am quite certain that the Howard government has not done so. Adam 06:25, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * (18 months later) It was in SA:
 * See here after Table 3:
 * "In 1994, Liberal Government legislation was blocked in the Legislative Council by the Labor and Australian Democrat parties."
 * The House of Assembly accepts it (Adjourned debate continues from 1/3rd down the page to the end of the page -- corresponding to 10:43PM!)
 * The Legislative Council rejects it (PDF->HTML via Google) (on page 84)
 * Mark Hurd 06:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

"I am pretty certain that no government has ever introduced a bill to abolish compulsory voting" I consider this highly innapropriate. I hate John Howard and beleive that "the People of Ausralia" should do so. Within Australian borders, I take offense to opposion of compulsory voting. For a good example, if I were a school teacher and a student made such comments about the law, I would send them straight to their head of year (there is no Article by this name, there probaly should be). Since the Australian Constitution does not guarantee 'free speech' (especially not in its American form), I feel I have a right to this. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)


 * Wikipedia isn't here to tell people how things *should* work, though, only how they *do*. --Calair 02:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Neither is it here to tell people who they should hate, whether they are Australians or not. Neither is it "within Australian borders"; its servers are in several places, but primarily in Florida, USA; its editors are all over the world.  And I'm glad I never attended a school where I was subject to discipline for my political beliefs, as you apparently think it's proper for schoolteachers to do. *Dan T.* 22:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia isn't here to tell people how things *should* work, though, only how they *do*" I have always thought of that as applying to "articles." But this is not an "article" but a discussion on it, I have often assumend that many policys that apply to "articles" do no apply to 'talks'.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk) | test | contributions|

One, Two, Three, Three ...
Forgive me, I'm a lawyer, and I tend to remember things mostly if they generated interesting litigation, but what about Albert Langer and his bizarre campaign (whenever it was; 1993? 1996?) to promote the option of voting validly but without distributing preferences between whichever candidates you consider to be the equal worst. There was a prosecution, and some legislative amendments. I'm sure I can dig out some references if it's thought that this might be included, but I won't bother if it's thought to be not worth including.--SilasM 10:30, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I thought it was 2004. --ajdlinux 22:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Langer's "vote 1, 2, 2, 2" campaign & prosecution for it were 1996 - see here and here, for instance. He may well have been active on some front during the most recent election, but I'm pretty sure that particular loophole was plugged shortly after Langer's prosecution (in which he received a ten-week sentence for advocating what was, at the time, a legal and valid vote). --Calair 23:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The how to vote image
The how-to-vote card is Liberal. NPOV, anyone? --ajdlinux 22:36, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Whereas one from the Australian Greens would be NPOV. :P I didn't upload the image, but I think it's better to use a real HTV rather than an imaginary one. Andjam 23:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it should be moved to the House of Reps section of the article, where HTVs are first discussed? I'm not particularly fussed by its inclusion in the article (I agree that it's better to use a real HTV, and the Liberal one is as appropriate as any other) but moving it there would put it more firmly in its intended context as an example. If we need an image for the intro, perhaps a blank ballot paper instead?


 * Come to think of it, a blank ballot and a HTV for the same election would complement one another nicely, if anybody can dig those up? --Calair 23:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I deliberately uploaded a Liberal HTV so that I (an ALP member) would not be accused of POV. You can't win :) Adam 02:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Where's a Marijuana Smokers Party HTV card when you need one! Georgeslegloupier 15:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Informal voting is illegal?
Blimey! Now they tell me, after all these years... My grandmother used to give them all a tick, to be fair to everyone...

On a more serious note, can anyone tell me WHERE it says informal voting is illegal? Because that is what the article is suggesting:

In practice, while illegal, informal voting - going through the motions of voting without actually filling in a valid ballot - is near-impossible to prosecute, given the secret nature of the ballot.

The legislation cited seems to make not voting illegal. But informal voting is still voting, wouldn't it be called something like "informal non-voting"? I think maybe someone has misinterpreted the legislation cited here. Or confused "informal voting" with "advocating informal voting". Georgeslegloupier 15:06, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The legislation doesn't say it is every elector's "duty to attempt to vote". It's clearly a pedantic point, but I believe we need a lawyer's opinion to suggest an informal vote is legal, as compared to an unenforceable illegality. Mark Hurd 05:28, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I found this a little while ago that states that voting informal is legal:

"A few years ago all the major parties passed an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act making it illegal to encourage people to vote informal or in any other way not specified by the Act. Maximum penalty: imprisonment for six months. Although it is quite legal to actually vote informal, it is now a crime to advocate doing so." Georgeslegloupier 16:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

In today's SA state election the Legislative Assembly ballot paper says "You are not obligated to mark this paper." or words to that effect. Mark Hurd 03:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * And the reason is that the SA legislation has the same wording as the Federal one mentioned in the article (and above), but point (2) is added to explicitly allow blank ballot papers. See SA ELECTORAL ACT 1985 - SECT 85. Mark Hurd 05:07, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Anthony Green (election analyst) describes this and other unique SA electoral matters here: Mark Hurd 02:26, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * IIRC, that "voting informal is illegal" was my edit. Looking back at it, I think I mentally amalgamated "voting informal" with "not voting", which I shouldn't have. It's clear that "not voting" is an offence - see refs in the preceding paragraph - but not so clear (to me, at least) whether an informal ballot would count as "not voting". (While we might refer to it as an 'informal vote', that doesn't necessarily mean it's a 'vote' in legal terms; I don't have a Macquarie handy, but dictionary.com defines a vote as a "formal expression of preference", and I'm not convinced an informal vote counts as either 'formal' or an 'expression of preference'.)


 * But I'm not a lawyer and looking back on it, I don't think I had good grounds for including that claim, so I've removed it. The article could do with something on the illegality of advocating informal votes, but that's a separate issue (and wasn't the basis for my claim that voting informal is illegal). --Calair 08:32, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Norfolk Island
The article says the population of NI is not represented in the Federal Parliament. This is not entirely true. NI as a whole is certainly not represented, but this makes it clear that NI residents can enrol in any state-based Federal electorate, or Solomon (NT) or Canberra (ACT). I'm not sure how this information should be presented, which is why I'm raising it here. JackofOz 12:42, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

"Authorised by..."
I just edited I approve this message (see section "Other countries"), adding a reference to the Australian electoral system's use of "Authorised by..." at the end of ads. Could someone please check it and make sure I've got my facts right?

Perhaps it also deserves a mention in this article. It also relates to controversies over allegedly deceptive conduct, such as that by Exclusive Brethren supporting the Liberal party (recent SMH article by David Marr) and Liberal party flyers made up to look like Greens promo, except that they actually criticised the Greens, making what the Greens considered false claims. Just a suggestion - I don't know this area very well, and don't have the links... --Singkong2005 (t - c - WPID) 03:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The fake Greens how-to-vote cards? Try this report for a start. It goes much deeper of course, but I don't know how article-worthy the Australian blogosphere is. --bainer (talk) 03:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Very common misunderstanding about "Preference Deals"
Is it worth noting or even clarifying the point that quite a few Australians believe that "preference deals" are given to other parties automatically without the voter's consent? As an Example: In QLD I vote (optional preferential system) 1 for the Fishing Party without voting for anyone else, once the vote has been counted it has been exhausted, but quite a few people think that because the Fishing Party did a "preference deal" with the Cotton Underwear party, my vote than goes to that party (in a close count). This seems to be perpetuated by the Australian media quite a bit, when the real meaning of "preference deals" is that a party will "direct" someone to vote in a certain way via a How-to-Vote card, but there is no automatic mechanism that makes it happen unless the voter willingly follows the How-to-vote card.--81.144.244.194 15:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)Lucas

The situation in the Senate is rather different, because there we have compulsory full preferential voting - the voter must either vote above the line, in which case their preferences are allocated as their party has directed, or vote below the line, in which case they must fill in every square themselves. In practice more than 95% of voters vote above the line, which means that a preference deal between (say) Family First and the ALP will result in the overwhelming majority of preferences being allocated according to the terms of that deal - which is how Steve Fielding got elected, and also how various obscure people got elected to the NSW Legislative Council despite getting hardly any first preference votes. Adam 05:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Federal Electorates
Technically, they are called Divisions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.5.177 (talk) 13:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Defending freedom?
I think the reasons for Australia adopting Compulsory Voting could be looked into a little more than "a duty to defend freedoms so dearly bought". Writing that 60,000 Australians died "defending freedom" seems a bit of a generalisation.


 * Well the fact is that was the rationale used at the time. Rocksong 01:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)