Rosa Said:

Is Preferential Voting Illegal?

We Answered:

No it is not. Although the poster above is right in essence, she got the name wrong. It was a Mr. Ditchburn that challenged the validity of preferential voting in the House of Representatives and Above the Line voting in the Senate. This case was heard in the High Court of Australia (HCA) in 2002 and is similar to another claim he laid in 1998.

What his main submission in both claims was, was that it is a Constitutional right to directly choose political representation (in Section 24) and the preferential voting system is contrary to this, as it allows votes to be redistributed. Similarly in the above the line format of voting, a constituent does not have a say in who their preferences go to, thus conflicting with the Constitutional right to directly elect your preferred candidate.

The HCA ruled that it was not contrary to Section 24 and the preferential system of voting did not infringe the rights to directly elect candidates.

I must personally agree - although I believe Mr. Ditchburn did have a valid point. The preferential system of voting in Australia is preferred to the first past the post system (which is where you just vote for one candidate and whoever gets the most votes wins). The point behind this, is that as Australia is a liberal democracy, it is better to have a government that the majority of people prefer over a government comprised of members which a minority of the population voted for. For instance, in the first past the post methods, someone could be elected if they have a majority of votes, even if only 15% of Australian's voted for them (providing they have more votes than the other candidates). In the preferential voting system, as people number candidates in order of preference, even if their candidate is knocked out, their vote rather then being discounted will go to the candidate they next prefer. The election can't be called until the leading candidate has received 50% plus 1 vote - thus ensuring that the elected candidate is at least preferred by the majority.

In regards to your second question, as per the recent marketing campaign "every vote counts", it is correct that every ballot paper, regardless of how it is marked, must be considered a legal and binding vote. Some of my friends at uni who work as vote counters, have told me stories about how they have to track down ballot papers that were left in toilets or have been scribbled all over - just to ensure that someone, who probably didn't even care about their vote (I mean leaving it in the toilet doesn't really indicate that they want to be included), didn't miss out on their opportunity to vote.

Ruby Said:

How Can We Change the way we fill out the Ballot Paper?

We Answered:

ALL votes are counted with at least one person from each major party scrutinising the person checking and counting the ballot paper so it would be impossible for someone to rub it out and change it. One of the few advantages of having something done manually instead of by computers.

Grace Said:

How many of you out there actually vote?

We Answered:

I vote, but I live in the U.S. In my opinion voting is definitely important. I also think that people that don't vote should not run their mouths about who is currently in office because had they taken the time to go vote they may have been able to sway the outcome of the election.