I don't misunderstand anything fd.


it would appear again... you just don't get it.

Then answer this. How is it possible that ranking all candidates can work against the interest of the individual voter, provided they actually rank the candidates in order of preference?

It is not possible. Some people are just tricked into thinking it is because they don't understand how the system works. They don't understand that our system is effectively a series of elections, rather than a single election.

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You cannot only vote for one party in a number of elections if they are not candidates in all of those elections. This is not a flaw. This is common sense. You can only vote for the candidates that are actually running. You are confusing your favourite party losing with being forced to vote against your favourite party. You are never forced to vote against your favourite party.

I suiggest you reconsider how our system works, with the understanding that it is a series of elections, not a single election.

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In each election you do only vote for one party Grendel. It is not possible to vote for two parties at once. That is just silly. You are confusing what happens over many elections with what happens in a single election. You cannot hope to comprehend the issue while you continue to misunderstand that.

Yes you do misunderstand it. That is why you keep switching from  detailed discussion back to broad generalisations. Too much time on the details and your argument would disappear. Go ahead and do the simplified ballot as an example if you want. I will then show you why you are wrong. It is not possible for ranking all candidates to work against your interests.

Or alternatively, have another think about the system, with the realisation that it is a series of elections, not a single election. You have to rank many candidates because there can be many elections. They could instead require voters to return to the polls each time. That is how they do it in France. But that is a bit silly. It's easier just to rank them the first time. It would however lead people to understand our system and realise how well it actually works.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/electoral-reform/optional-preferential-voting.html

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1187572706

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You misunderstand. Our system is actually a series of elections. It's just that the general public doesn't always see the details, which is why there is so much confusion.

If you are talking about a single election, then your vote only counts for one candidate, who is your favourite out of all the running candidates. There is nothing unfair in that. You can only pretend there is something unfair by talking about a series of elections and a single election in the one sentence.

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Perhaps if you didn't run away as soon as we got to the details, we would only have to discuss it once. Nothing will ever be resolved with broad generalisations.

That doesn't mean you understand what is going on. You were probably confused by the shortcuts taken in recounting the votes for each election and ended up thinking of it as only one election in which the votes were changed.

Voting No. 1 for a minor party means nothing as I have discovered in previous years.  Because of the way our voting system works and the way preferences are distributed - it doesn't matter whether one party has the largest number of primary votes because all the other parties give their preferences to one of the two major parties and then work their way upward (downward?) and your primary vote gets nowhere.

Although it's boring - it's always best to put your number one candidate first and those you don't like - put last along with the religious parties.

I wouldn't be surprised if the donkey votes get shoved in to the favourite party of whoever's counting them - I doubt they would be counted twice by unbiased counters.  They would be batting for one team or another and it's probably human nature just to stick them in your favourite pile.

If you know people who vote informally - it's best to spend a little time convincing them which party would be best for our country and then convince them to vote a certain way - in the most simple terms of course. 

If your children are old enough to vote - make sure they're clued up as well and get them to spread this information to their ignorant friends, rather than waste a vote on nothing - better it go to a decent party, even if it's by your standards.

freediver wrote on Nov 21^st, 2008 at 10:14am:


People do not need to vote at all if they don't have a choice. Civilian disobedience is better then mockery of voter.

The system can become irrelevant and fall apart, happened in history before.

To add AGAINST ALL to ballot paper and reduce number of pollie bludgers by abolishing states or at least having one elected governor instead of lots of leaches.