Ben was joined by Kevin Bonham to run through the close seats and the Senate race that have dragged out, one week after the election.
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I think they ordered more abacuses. Pretty complex.
Seriously though, yes they actually have to do three candidate prefered and full presence counting. Shock and horror at the thought. It’s not that complicated, it just requires more resourcing.
Maybe we could implement firs toast the post though or OPV to help make it a little easier.
I’m enjoying this. One episode idea: Could you find a way to make an episode out of describing the physical processes involved in conducting counts? In particular, it might be interesting to describe what a “three candidate preferred” count involves. Maybe you could bring on an experienced party scrutineer as a guest?
The tactical voting that’s cropping up isn’t amazing, but I’m not really aware of a good alternative.
Arrows theorem means that all voting systems will eventually have this issue. Instant runoff is a big improvement from first pass the post, while still being intuitive to voters. I’m not convinced that voters would have as much trust in the AEC to implement Condorcet voting, which realistically is the only place to go from here (unless we want multi-member electorates like in senate? I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that).
Bryce, why limit your imagination to systems that involve only electing one person? PR systems can minimise strategic voting issues, if you choose the right system.
Arrows theorem may be true but it’s mostly used poorly, to argue that there’s no point trying to improve anything.
Hi Ben,
I’d be very happy to see a move to a PR system, I’ve never found geographical electorates to be particularly representative of me anyway.
If we’re using our imagination though, I’d much prefer to see Liquid Voting implemented (perhaps with some stipend for high volume proxy voters). That’s really not something I see happening anytime soon though.
My problem with things like liquid voting is how it increases the demand on voters and effectively makes those with the time consider on each issue a lot more influence. I think we should be designing democratic processes that maximise political equality and make it easier for the time-poor. I did a podcast on this with the author of “Democracy for Busy People”.
Can you please explain what ‘liquid’ voting is.
Thks
Basically it’s the idea that you can either vote directly or delegate your vote to someone else, either for everything, or one vote or area of policy, and can recall your delegation at any time. To Ben’s point, it would mean that those who want to be informed on a particular issue can have their say, and if you don’t have time, someone you trust can make the decision for you. So basically, you get a choice between the convenience of representative democracy and the control of direct democracy, or somewhere in between.
Liquid democracy is a voting system where individuals can either vote directly on issues or delegate their vote to someone they trust, with the ability to revoke or reassign that delegation at any time.
I’ll have to have a listen to that podcast episode later!
I’m not necessarily convinced that’s a problem, per se, with liquid democracy though. While it definitely rewards engagement, I think the floor looks somewhat like modern day representative democracy anyway. I reckon something like party institutions would surely still exist.