QLD and NSW have Optional Preferential Voting (OPV) for electing local representatives to the lower house of state parliament. In most Australian elections you have to rank all candidates in order of preference. If you vote for a minor candidate, your vote will eventually be passed on to your lower preferences until one candidate has over 50% of the ballots.
In the senate, you can vote abouve the line by choosing one party, however this just means that the party effectively fills the preferences out for you. For QLD and NSW state elections, you are allowed to choose one candidate or rank some or all of them. This should not be confused with the senate system. If you do not rank at least one of the two major parties, your vote will probably not end up counting.
People argue that they shouldn't be forced to rank the major parties, but in my opinion it is only laziness and stubbornness that prevents them from distinguishing the two.
Some possible impacts of Optional Preferential Voting on a democracy are:
- The spoiler effect - minor parties can ruin the chances of major parties, meaning that the outcome of an election can be affected by whether someone with no chances of winning chooses to get their name on the ballot. Many minor parties encourage voters to only choose them and not rank the other parties. This could confuse people who think the system works the same way as the senate and that the party will distribute preferences.
- More extreme policies from the two major parties - as the major parties try to counter the spoiler effect, they will be forced to appeal to extremists who would normally vote for them via a lower ranking, rather than focussing on the middle ground and the other party's supporters. This can lead to instability in government, as policy changes significantly every time government changes hands.
- Lower chances of minor parties being elected, as they don't pass preferences onto each other.
- Increased chances of minor parties getting elected. I know this contradicts the above point, but there is a mechanism that can cause the opposite effect. If for example all the left wing voters do not distribute preferences, it increases the chance of a far right candidate gaining 50% of the now diminished pool of ballots. Rather than being a four way contest between left wing extremists, right wing extremists, and the centre-left and centre-right party, it becomes a three way contest between the centre-left and centre-right party and the right wing extremists. If the centre-right candidate happens to come third out of these three, many of his votes could go to the far right candidate, giving him power, even though the majority of citizens would prefer the centre-left candidate.
- People's votes don't count the way they expect because they assume it works the same way as the federal senate. Without a clear way to indicate the difference on the ballot, it is inevitable that many people will be mislead.
Optional Preferential Voting appeals to people's ignorance of how preferential voting works. It is promoted by people who object to having to rank all candidates because they see this as being forced to 'vote for' candidates they don't like. But that is not the case. Ranking all candidates is not a vote 'for' someone you like less. It does not reduce the liklihood of your favourite candidate getting elected. It merely increases the liklihood that you get a say in the outcome of the election, by preventing someone you like even less getting elected. By ranking all candidates, you are not 'voting for' all candidates, you are voting against the ones you like least. As an example, if you dislike both major parties, there is no way that ranking them both last will give them any more of an advantage against the minor parties than not ranking them. It can only disadvantage them. Compared with not ranking all candidates, it can only work in favour of all the candidates you rank above the major parties.
The same argument that applies for compulsory voting also applies against optional preferential voting. If you are going to make the ranking of the major candidates optional, you might as well make all voting optional, as you are really only giving people more opportunities to get out of making a decision.
Optional Preferential Voting will either mislead people about how their vote will be counted or appeal to their ignorance about how their vote will be counted. In exchange, the only benefit recieved is the freedom to be lazy with the ballot paper.