For this post, I’m not going to dwell too much on individual races and where they are up to, but instead look at broader trends. I’ll do another post today or tomorrow about the close races and what we’re waiting to see.
There were quite a few votes that weren’t counted last night. Almost 600,000 votes were counted for the lord mayoral election, but barely 450,000 primary votes were counted for the council election, and only about 60% of those votes had preferences distributed.
Overall the story is simple. The LNP’s vote largely stood still, while there was a substantial swing from Labor to the Greens. The Labor vote is still larger than the Greens vote, but not by a wide margin.
At the time of writing, Adrian Schrinner’s primary vote is up by just 0.2%, while the LNP council team is up by 0.7%. The swing from Labor to Greens was 4.5% on the mayoral ballot and about 6% on the council ballot.
The LNP is not winning an enormous share of the vote – Schrinner is on 48% of the primary vote and 55.8% after preferences – but with a single-member system with optional preferential voting it’s enough to win in a landslide when facing two opponents who split the anti-LNP vote fairly evenly.
There is a clear geographic polarisation of the centre-left vote, with the Greens polling better in the inner city and western suburbs, and Labor still being dominant in an outer suburban ring.
This first map shows which of the centre-left parties is polling higher in each ward, and can be toggled to show how much of the combined Labor+Greens vote was for the higher-polling party.
Labor is very much in the position of a minor party in some of those inner city wards. The party polled under 20% in Central, Paddington, Walter Taylor, The Gap, Pullenvale, Tennyson and Coorparoo.
This table shows the primary vote for the twelve wards in the inner/western suburbs, and the fourteen wards in the remainder of the council.
| Region | LNP | ALP | GRN |
| Inner & Western Suburbs | 44.0% | 20.1% | 30.8% |
| Outer Suburbs | 46.7% | 34.5% | 17.7% |
The LNP does slightly better in the outer suburbs, but face very different opponents. The Greens poll a vote 50% higher than Labor in the inner city, while Labor’s vote is twice the Greens vote in the outer suburbs.
Labor reached the 2CP in all fourteen outer suburban wards, but just two inner city wards (Holland Park and Morningside). An independent has been re-elected in Tennyson, but the other nine inner city wards are LNP vs Greens contests.
Of course there is not a hard-and-fast boundary between Greensland and Laborland. In eighteen wards, the higher-polling centre-left party polled less than double the vote for the other party. The parties are basically tied in Jamboree, and are also very close in Holland Park and Hamilton.
The use of optional preferential voting becomes more of an issue in wards where Labor and Greens both poll a substantial share of the vote. I have previously posted about how I believe three wards would have flipped from LNP to either Labor or Greens if compulsory preferential voting was used. I’m sure we’ll find something similar once we have a more complete dataset for this election, indeed there may be even more. There are a lot of close wards.
Optional preferential voting is often talked about as this force of nature, almost equivalent to first past the post. But some preferences do flow under OPV. While FPTP removes choice from a voter by forcing them to choose between their favourite candidate and the candidate with the best chance of winning, OPV doesn’t do that. And we do see rates of preferencing change depending on the political context.
Based on the early data, it looks like there’s been a significant uptick in rates of preferences flowing from Labor to Greens and vice versa.
This first table compares how preferences from all minor candidates flowed to the final candidates at the 2020 Brisbane City election to the flows last night. I excluded any primary votes in booths where a preference count has not been concluded, so it is definitely a partial dataset. And this also includes preferences from other minor candidates, but there aren’t many of those.
| LNP | ALP | GRN | EXH | |
| ALP in top two, 2020 | 10.2% | 46.3% | 43.5% | |
| ALP in top two, 2024 | 11.4% | 57.4% | 31.2% | |
| Greens in top two, 2020 | 13.5% | 35.4% | 51.1% | |
| Greens in top two, 2024 | 17.0% | 49.2% | 33.8% |
Generally Labor preferences don’t flow to the Greens as strongly as vice versa, but the exhaust rates in both scenarios have dropped substantially. While half of all preferences exhausted in Greens contests in 2020, that rate is barely one third in 2024.
The number of votes flowing to the LNP did go up, but by much less than Labor or the Greens. Even if the ratio of preferences flowing to the LNP stays steady, it’s still more helpful to their opponents to have less votes exhausting.
But was that just a relic of 2020? I wanted to look over a longer period, but council elections are messier, with different ranges of candidates, wards with no Greens candidate, and changes in who made the 2CP. This isn’t true for the lord mayoral election. This next chart shows how preferences from other candidates (predominantly the Greens) split between LNP, Labor and exhausted votes at the last six elections, plus last night. The lord mayoral election also has the advantage of having a more complete dataset than the council election.
It looks like there has been a long-term trend of Labor gaining more preferences, which probably reflects the increasing vote share of the Greens (whereas most of the “others” vote in 2000 was from independents), but still the 2024 data looks quite different to 2016 and 2020.
This probably explains why the ABC and Poll Bludger were having a lot of trouble projecting results last night. With the ECQ taking a long time to count (partly explained by counting the lord mayoral election first, but it seems like there are other issues), they were relying on assumptions about how preferences based on past elections. If those preference flows change, those assumptions will be wrong.
The Brisbane election is a brilliant example of how electoral system design have massive impacts on outcomes.
The LNP is not overwhelmingly popular – the LNP hasn’t won a majority of the vote at either the 2020 or 2024 elections, but look set to win a significant majority in addition to the mayoralty. There is no single centre-left party that can rival them in popularity, but Labor and the Greens did poll a majority of the council vote between them.
It is true that the result would probably do a better job of reflecting how people voted under CPV than OPV, but I don’t think that should be the end of the story. Any single-member electorate system will do a very poor job of representing a community that is voting the way we saw in Brisbane last night.
It doesn’t have to be that way. New South Wales, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and to a lesser extent South Australia and regional Victoria have proportional electoral systems that do a better job of representing voters. Even three-member wards would produce much better results and make the question of whether voters are forced to mark preferences much less important.
The Queensland government has now been in power for nine years and has totally failed to tackle the poor state of Queensland local government electoral systems. The block vote system used for undivided councils is an embarrassment, and the single-member wards used in the south east aren’t much better. Queenslanders should demand better.
Hi Ben. Both Greens and ALP HTVs were saying “number all squares” this time. This may have a lot to do with the decrease in the exhaustion rate – some voters just do what they’re told by the party. Of course it varies by party – most LNP voters seem to expect to be told exactly what to do (you sometimes see a look of relief on their faces when they get the “right” HTV). The fraction who do what they’re told is lower in the other parties, but there do seem to be some of them.
Voting systems need to be consistent for every level of government.
Of course a full review is warranted, but I think CPV for single member wards and CPV for a mayoral vote would work well for most large council areas in QLD.
For small areas, multi-member CPV wards are probably needed otherwise the number of electors would be tiny.
@The Banana Republic I absolutely agree. I’ve asked the ECQ why we have different voting processes for Ipswich and Brisbane and the response is that’s just the way it is. I don’t really care what system we use, as long as everyone uses it. And it should preferably match the state system.
I don’t think that the ECQ has the level of competence required to do the job. For example, at the postal/prepolling centre for Holland Park last night we were squeezed into two office rooms that had 4 tables in each for counting. We had ALL new staff except for the RO and her deputy.
The smartest thing to do would be to close the ECQ and replace them with the AEC.
“Voting systems need to be consistent for every level of government.”
I strongly disagree. That is a recipe to be stuck with the same old voting system. Improving systems will rarely take place for every level (arguably never). The inconsistency is a problem but ultimately you need to start somewhere to move away from single-member electorates.
“I’ve asked the ECQ why we have different voting processes for Ipswich and Brisbane and the response is that’s just the way it is.”
Well yeah, you ask a stupid question you’re going to get that response. It’s not the ECQ that decides the electoral system.
I support consistency in voting systems, but just in terms of what a valid vote looks like and what the instructions to voters are – it doesn’t mean everything has to use the exact same system. I support moving to multi-member STV with OPV and instructions to number at least X boxes for council elections (while banning ‘just vote 1’ advocacy), and also making savings provisions much more generous for the CPV elections, and abolishing the use of FPTP completely. Those would all help to address the voter confusion we’ve seen at these by-elections while improving the electoral systems more broadly.
The terrible Ipswich council electoral system was only introduced in 2019 after a review of the system (in response to all the corruption issues on council) somehow recommended the terrible system they have now. I’m really not sure how they possibly came to that conclusion – divination perhaps?
Labor don’t want a proportional system and the LNP hate the idea even more. If the LNP thought they could get away with FPTP single member wards with American style (or Bjelke style) gerrymandering then they’d do that. Maybe they will. Nothing’s changing any time soon, at least not for the better.
Ben disagrees with having consistent systems for reasons of progress, but I think it’s even more fundamental than that – different elections have different needs – You obviously couldn’t elect the Mayor with an open list PR system, and I think a geographically huge and disparate place like Queensland needs some level of geographic representation at the state level, whereas a small LGA can probably elect the whole council at large with PR.
Call the Brisbane City LNP standing still if you like. In truth, it’s increased. Labor has been the big loser here, their policy of abandoning territory to the Greens has served them poorly. The Greens putsch has been halted in its tracks. We have seen the Greens can’t count – claiming victory in a seat they have solidly lost, Walter Taylor. We’ve seen the Courier Mail and the ABC fall under the Greens spell, making dim witted statements about a reduced LNP Council being forced into the minority. It’s a worst case scenario for the Greens based on their own expectations, but they thrive on false hopes, so you will never get them to understand. The rest of us are stuck with the responsibility of living in the real world.
A lot of political parties would be delighted to have a false hope which saw your vote increase by 5%
I’m pretty sure I heard Christian Rowan (state member for Moggill) say on ABC Radio Brisbane last night that if the LNP win the state election, they will reintroduce OPV for state elections (though I might’ve misheard him).
Lynne, does your “real world” include the hope of the LNP winning back Ryan and Brisbane in 2025?
@Ben Raue “Well yeah, you ask a stupid question you’re going to get that response. It’s not the ECQ that decides the electoral system.”
Actually Ben, in Queensland it is. Not OPV vs CPV, but certainly Divided Councils, Undivided Councils, Hybrid Voting and all the rest are referred to the ICC by the ECQ and then implemented by the ECQ. That’s why we ended up with the system used in Ipswich.
@Wilson Don’t forget that the last Queensland redistribution was in 2017.
@Ben Raue You know that consistency doesn’t preclude change?
Crisafulli has already stated his intention to reintroduce OPV for state elections.
“You know that consistency doesn’t preclude change?”
Of course it does. Electoral reform is already very difficult without requiring that we coordinate it at the council, state and federal level.
That’s very undemocratic of Crisafullishit
Caleb, actually Labor was also not fair in introducing CPV without any proper consultation (either with public or even fellow MP’s). I would argue OPV is a better system because it allows voters to choose whether they wish to give preferences or not.
@wilson – I don’t actually run on hope, or crystal balls for that matter. Do you?
There are many arguments to be had about voting systems. But the big thing, as @Yoh A says, is that the electorate has to choose their voting system. Voting is at the heart of our democratic system. Change it without public consultation as Labor did, and you’re not living in a democracy any more.
@Doug – indeed. But that 5 percent was won from their unofficial coalition partner, the ALP. Not from their opponent, the LNP.
OPV generally advantages the leading party on primary votes, and disadvantages parties reliant on preferences, assuming primary votes don’t change when switching from CPV to OPV.
In simple, three-way contests, preferences (or lack thereof) from the party that is likely to come last e.g. the Greens in outer suburbs, Labor in Green vs LNP contests, will be most decisive. The LNP generally reaches the final two. The encouragement of “Vote 1 only” will then work if the third place party’s voters just vote 1.
Greens voters are way more likely to number preferences than Labor voters. The exhaustion rate of Labor votes in Coorparoo and Walter Taylor meant the Greens will likely miss out on both. The Greens did poorly on primaries in both, compared to their federal counterparts. Coorparoo is within the federal seat of Grififth and they won on primaries and the 2PP in 2022 was in the 60s or 70s in this neck of the woods.
Under OPV, the party that is most likely to come second needs to rally and impel voters to vote tactically, if not get preferences from lower placed parties.
Lynne, you run on what you like, but I feel like you’ve missed the entire purpose of this site, which is about looking forward (and back) with respect to elections. Perhaps you’re lost and need directions to the LNPs Facebook page?
Maybe there should be a deal between the greens and alp. Re territory that each contests. Alternately change voting system to Cpv to prevent liberal wins by default.
“OPV is a better system because it allows voters to choose whether they wish to give preferences or not”
I have grown sick of this argument.
Lets put a trap door in the voting booth and having two levers. One let’s you cast a vote and the other opens the trap door. Some voters invariably will make the mistake and go down the trap door. This should not be characterised as “making a choice”, they didn’t realise what they were doing.
Electoral systems should not be designed to encourage people to throw their vote away by accident which, let’s be honest, is why the Coalition likes OPV.
You need to look no further than the odious “Just Vote 1” signs in neutral colours brandished about by the LNP to see the intent is to disenfranchise Labor and Green voters who would preference against the LNP by tricking them. I think many voters see “Just Vote 1” and default to the old senate system and think there preferences are handled.
Voting systems should be designed to make it easy for voters to cast *effective* ballots, not just *formal* ballots. CPV ballot instructions with robust savings provisions would be good.
Labor had their chance to enforce CPV on council. They didn’t take it. It’s too late now.
Labor will never agree to a territory split with the Greens, at least until they no longer hold any inner city seats at any level of government. Running a council campaign in Central and Paddington, however small, is a visibility boost for their brand, which is useful when they have incumbents in the state seats of McConnel and Cooper who they need to re-elect.
As for the Greens, when they’re riding a wave of upward momentum in vote share, even if it didn’t quite translate into more seats, I don’t see why they’d want to limit their possibilities by surrendering territory to Labor that they could conceivably win for themselves one day. If they can get another big swing in Morningside then they’re in the conversation for victory. And it gives them a visibility boost for a campaign to win Bulimba at the state election.
@Ben Raue Re. consistent voting systems
I certainly agree with your point that the same voting system for every level of government stunts reform on voting systems.
Ultimately we are always looking to balance proportional representation, the benefits of having a member serving a specific area, and keeping the total number of members reasonable. For every council the ideal voting system for them will vary. Of course a proper government review will give much better informed opinions and thoughts then my own, but in general CPV for mayors probably makes the most sense. For small councils straightforward PR for councillors is probably best, since any system with separate electorates will have a tiny number of electors in each. For more medium size councils I think multi-member electorates work really well to make sure there is a decent number of electors in each area whilst still allowing councillors to have a specific electorate to focus on for issues. For really big councils like Brisbane that function in the magnitude of a state election single member electorates with CPV are probably the best option for the current number of councillors as with multi-member electorates the size of each electorate would end up really large. But if the current number of councillors was doubled or tripled then multi-member electorates with 3 or 5 members might work really well!
I also definitely think that byelections with a different voting system should not be allowed to occur on the same day as council elections, the number of informal votes in West Ipswich and Inala has been really sad.
@Banana Republic, I agree about the informal voting. Same day voting minimises nuisances to voters and the cost of elections. The same ECQ staff can handle both elections. Having two different election days would probably hurt voter turnout. The fault lies with the lack of clarity of voting systems. Better communication and signage and maybe more workers were needed in Ipswich West and Inala.
Do you have any articles explaining the nt proportional system you mentioned? Is that at local government level?
Yes, they use PR for multi-member wards in local councils.
I haven’t written much about it, but I did do a post arguing against Alice Springs being split up into small wards.
@Ben Raue
In your article, you rightly comment that CPV would have delivered a more proportional result than OPV. Let’s also recognise that changing to CPV would also be a relatively small change in a technical sense, and could be quite agreeable in a social sense because people are already familiar with CPV in other elections.
Conversely, changing straight from OPV to multi-member PR would be a relatively harder sell. You argue that PR is better, but until the time comes when you actually win that argument and a parliament legislates such a change, then in the meantime we’re left with this disproportionate OPV system.
With respect, shooting for PR appears to be preferencing ideology for this system over pragmatism for successfully making democratic reforms – basically it’s letting perfect become the enemy of the good.
It’s fine for you to express the ideal system that you’d prefer, but if you acknowledged various genuine options and the pros and cons of each, then you would make a clearer pathway for reform from the smaller to the bigger changes. Each individual reader could then support your suggestions to the extent that they were comfortable with.
@ Ben Messenger
Do you have some magic power that allows you to see into the inner mind of each voter to determine what their intent is?
“This should not be characterised as “making a choice”, they didn’t realise what they were doing. Electoral systems should not be designed to encourage people to throw their vote away by accident which, let’s be honest, is why the Coalition likes OPV.” This is a huge assumption to be making.
I voted OPV in both my ward and LM votes, but this was no “mistake” or “accident” it was both a deliberate decision.
In the Ward I voted 1 Green and 2 Labor, mainly because I knew the Green’s candidate had no chance, so I gave my next preference to the party I liked best out of the other two. No point giving it to the third LNP person – that would be silly.
In the LM race I took the view that Schrinner was going to win easily, so I just voted 1 Greens more as protest vote against Labor that they really need to lift their game if they “deserve” my vote. I am not enamoured with the Greens, but at least they exploring different ideas, some good, some bad. But the more we have this tweedle dee and tweedle dum between the LNP and Labor – then we are really not progressing much at all in terms of possible solutions to real problems. I call this strategic voting, not accidental voting.
In my experience, the people who seem to strongly favour CPV come from either of the two major parties, because it is in their interest to maintain a preference flow that eventually reaches their party. I am of the view that ALL parties (Major and Minors) need to earn that vote, not just rely on some compulsory voting methodology.
+1 to your PoV Peter. I think setting small, but meaningful and achievable reforms, especially when it comes to elections / electoral reform is the most important part of any pressure campaign to get the QLD State Government to make changes here.
The underlying issue is that almost nobody cares about this stuff. Proposing big changes to systems that most people think are working fine is a poor way to affect change.
@Peter of course PR is difficult to achieve. Which is why you need to argue for it regularly, not waiting for the ideal moment.
I am not arguing against a switch to CPV. I think I made it pretty clear before the election that it would do a better job of electing representatives.
But I do not think a switch to CPV would get us any closer to a properly proportional system so I am not going to exaggerate it’s benefits or devote my energy to it.
Your comments on this topic are very strange. If you disagree with me you’re welcome to make that case but I don’t need your concern trolling about how I would be so much more effective if I just was pursuing an entirely different strategy to achieve different things.
“+1 to your PoV Peter. I think setting small, but meaningful and achievable reforms, especially when it comes to elections / electoral reform is the most important part of any pressure campaign to get the QLD State Government to make changes here.”
Setting small goals is a good way to achieve small reforms. Which sometimes are important and necessary. I argue for plenty of small reforms.
Achieving small reforms does not help us achieve large reforms. They’re either irrelevant, or in some cases can sap the energy from a campaign to achieve real change.
So yes, argue for small changes where they are a positive step, but not as a step towards something bigger.
Having a slightly better version of single-member electorates won’t get us any closer to PR.
The reason I don’t loudly advocate for CPV over OPV is because I think both systems have major downsides and don’t feel strongly either way. I prefer a system which involves OPV counting but with CPV communications. If the LNP win the next Queensland election and seek a switch to OPV I will advocate for that system.
@ Neil Flanagan
Some voters absolutely do fall down the trap door.
You believe you didn’t (I would argue you did with your Lord Mayor vote, presuming you’d prefer Tracey Price over Adrian Schrinner), but some voters clearly do.
My solution to anyone who truly has no opinion about some candidates in a CPV ballot is to randomise their decision. All the voters who did that would essentially cancel out. However, what do we see when voters have a CPV ballot? Strong preferences for some parties over others. This cohort of voters that either intentionally or accidentally have a exhaust their ballots *do* have a preference and in my opinion it’s best to compel them to express that preference so our democratic outcomes align better with the preferences of the people. It’s the same theory as compulsory voting being a bulwark against soft disenfranchisement.
Ben M
Not sure how old you are but it should be remembered that it was Labor that introduced OPV in NSW and Qld because it suited them at the time. The tables have turned and it now advantages the ALP. OPV is not a wasted vote – if anything it is a more considered vote. How far do you go. It works well in the senate and they have had it in Tasmania for decades. The only people that don’t like it are the Labor party as they might actually have to make an effort and fight to get a second preference vote. And it does give voters the opportunity to have the ‘pox on both their houses option’ – something I would have liked on the 2019 federal election or the last Vic state election when both Liberal and Labor candidates were below par and/or odious.
@ Ben Messenger
There you go again, BM assuming something that is not the case – “I would argue you did with your Lord Mayor vote, presuming you’d prefer Tracey Price over Adrian Schrinner”. No I WOULDN’T. I actually like Schrinner as a moderate Liberal, even though I lean left. Price said or did nothing that made me want to vote for her.
We do not (as yet) live in a “Minority Report” precog world, where someone can predetermine where their “strong preference” do or don’t lie. People’s preferences and how far they take that preferencing are best determined by the person themselves. We are adults you know. Taking your argument (i.e. people don’t know what is best for themselves) to its final conclusion, then maybe we shouldn’t have compulsory voting and only those who pass some cognition test should be allowed to vote.
Again, how the hell do you DEFINITIVELY know that some voters have strong preferences for some parties over others using CPV data alone? There have been times over the years when I have literally cried in the ballot box because I have come to the point where I have to put a number against one or more parties who I absolutely despise, but because of CPV I must do so to cast a valid vote. That forced decision certainly did not represent my “strong preference” and at best it represented a false positive.
@ Ben Raue
If I put reasonable and constructive suggestions to you, and you say, “I don’t need your concern trolling”, then you’re reading me all wrong, and you’re not showing me the respect that I have shown you.
“If you disagree with me you’re welcome to make that case…”
I disagree with your approach because I think it’s very unconstructive.
Furtive Lawngnome comments above that the major parties aren’t likely to support PR. I agree. So your regular arguments for PR aren’t likely to help create tangible changes. If you want PR, you’ll have to change their minds somehow (how?), or adopt a political stance and change them out.
In the meantime, while you’re arguing for PR, we have OPV in use here, a system that you note is more disproportional to both CPV and PR.
Let’s also note multiple comments above that there are Queensland politicians who are currently suggesting to change state elections from CPV to OPV.
So while you’re arguing regularly for PR, the politicians appear to be moving in the other direction. Isn’t it ironic that even though you don’t see the point of seeking consistency in voting systems, that current trends are pointing towards more consistent use of… OPV, the least proportional of these 3 systems?
This is perfect being the enemy of the good. If you’re not able to outline a viable pathway to achieving majority support for your position on PR, then I’m sorry to say that “That is a recipe to be stuck with the same old voting system.”
If Labor & Greens want to vote the LNP out of the City council, then they have to agree to the only Greens fielding candidates in the Inner city & only labor in the outer suburbs.
Neil Flanagan, I don’t dispute that your personal experience was that CPV advocates are from the major parties, but perhaps that may not be a representative sample, because it seems strange that the LNP would heavily back OPV and “Just Vote 1” against the wishes of its base.
It seems to me that the majors view CPV and OPV in tactical terms rather than the philosophical terms we’re discussing. The LNP were in favour of CPV back when they were two distinct parties and sometimes ran in the same electorates, because they wanted a stronger preference flow between those parties. At that time, Labor didn’t have a serious competitor on the left so they were happy with OPV. Now the roles have reversed because the LNP merged into one party and Labor are reliant on Greens preferences in many contests (and vice versa, so I’d imagine most Greens supporters also want CPV).
CPV is not more proportional than OPV. One can be more proportional in certain contexts.
I will argue for my preferred single member system when the issue arises, which is neither OPV or CPV but a middle-ground compromise. My advocacy of PR doesn’t prevent me from doing that.
Peter, you don’t actually support the reforms I am proposing so I would be mad to listen to your advice about how to achieve it, which seems to be consist of “the best way to achieve change is to advocate for something entirely different”.
Yes, PR is a difficult reform to achieve. But I will continue to point out the weakness in our current systems.
The Western Australian ALP Government has introduced OPV for local government elections but has avoided CPV – very properly, as it would be a democratic travesty to force voters to give a full range of preferences to individual candidates – no Party affiliation is the norm for WA LGA elections. The new system commenced last October and there were very few ‘come from behind’ wins with a very high exhaustion rate. The one Mayor who was defeated on preferences had a primary vote below 20%.
OPV is fairer than First past the post which can become a lottery with a plethora of candidates, and fairer than CPV which forces a whole range of “choice” and can lead to genuine errors in numerical sequencing.
Remember that OPV can basically turn into FPTP if there’s enough “Just Vote 1” campaigning going on.
@ Neil Flanagan
I know there are some voters who accidentally throw their vote away by not preferencing enough because I’ve talked to some!
If you would prefer Schrinner win than Price win then you do indeed fit my definition of a voter with a preference who fell down the trap door. If you had been compelled to fill out more preferences you would have cast a more powerful vote to express your opinion on the governance of Brisbane.
My argument is that it’s a better to force people who have no preference to randomise some of their vote than it is to leave this trap door for people who *do* have preferences to *not* have that preference reflected on their ballot.
@ Redistributed
Saying OPV is ok because Labor will have to make “effort and fight to get a second preference vote” I think is perverse. The effort to convince somebody to preference you vs the effort from other interested parties to confuse people into “Just Vote 1” is asymmetric.
The equivelant would be going to America and saying “we don’t need compulsory attendance to get more black people or young people to vote, the Democrats need to make more effort and fight to convince those people to vote.”
Compulsory attendance at the polling place prevents people from being soft disenfranchised by interested parties (the Republicans in the American case) making voting time intensive, inconvenient, or seem pointless. Millions of Americans are disenfranchised through that process but because of Australia’s laws very fewer Australians are disenfranchised in a similar way.
CPV is the equivelant of that for preferences. Simple “Just Vote 1” signage drives up the exhaustion rate, and any attempt Labor or the Greens make to try to counteract it is alike to saying “don’t think about a duck.” Very difficult!
Agree with that, but OPV more accurately reflects the will of the voters.
LNP was elected in a landslide in 2012 due to many just voting 1.
They lost 35 seats 3 years later mostly due to many voters directing preferences
@ Wilson
I gather this is where I and others who prefer CPV disagree – Philosophy v Tactical.
I am first and foremost a democrat and not party political person. Sure I have my political views (mostly leftist), but as far as voting systems go I always try to see things from a democratic perspective first and foremost – what is the MOST democratic method we can adopt. For me that always boils down to the philosophical belief that OPV is the most democratic. It allow the greatest autonomy for the voter to express their individual vote the way THEY wish to express it. NOT being forced to vote for someone they don’t wish to vote for (it reminds me of images of the old USSR guard checking your vote at the ballot box).
I am not saying this is you and I often see the same thing in economists – certain professions tend to see things through the prisms of ideal and simplified models of how the world works and then try to fit everything within this working theory. Well the world is more complex than than and you will never get a perfect model that fits every circumstances and I am certainty not saying the OPV is perfect. But at the end of the day you have to choose one model and for me, the most democratic (and yes I agree that is a subjective measure) model of OPV is more ideal than CPV.
If I had my way, we (the Country) would have a full review of ALL things democracy related and we can have this discussion on creating the fairest democratic system and then we can all vote on it. Once settled it is locked into an Act that can not be amended without a super majority vote by a joint sitting of Parliament (> 75%). That way it doesn’t become the play thing of whichever party thinks any such changes will give them a tactical advantage at that point in time.
Ben Messenger, I would argue a counter point – CPV ‘forces’ voters to number all squares and does not give them a choice as to how to go about it, otherwise their vote would be informal. Similar to your US example where voters are herded into in person voting without any option to use alternative methods (pre poll or postal voting).
In contrast OPV allows a disinterested voter to simply select minor parties without care for the two majors (as Redistributed and Neil pointed out), otherwise they have to ‘hold their nose’ and try to guess which option would be the least worst.