YL
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Post by YL on May 27, 2022 17:53:45 GMT
The AEC has done "three candidate preferred" (i.e. redistributing preferences of everyone except Labor, the Liberals and the Greens) counts in Brisbane and Macnamara: www.aec.gov.au/news/results-3cp.htmIn Brisbane, the Greens appear to be ahead of Labor, so will win the seat; Macnamara is close three-way, but Labor are in the lead and should win on transfers unless they come third. Labor only need one of these for a majority. Brisbane is a classic illustration of what's wrong with a voting system that rewards not who comes first but whoever avoids coming last. Thus the eventual outcome rests on a desperate struggle between Labor and the Greens not to come last.
As already pointed out neither is going to come last. What is effectively happening here is that there is a Labor/Green bloc which between the two parties commands well over half the vote, and that it does indeed function as a bloc as far as the votes cast are concerned is demonstrated by the preference flow between the two parties. The system ensures that whichever party comes out on top within that bloc will win, and given that the bloc has considerably more votes than the Liberals that seems entirely reasonable. Indeed AIUI AV was originally introducted in Australia to ensure that the bloc formed by the predecessor parties to the current Liberals and Nationals was able to behave in this way without losing out to Labor. If Australia used FPTP then a likely situation would be that the bulk of the voters for the Labor/Green bloc would tactically settle on one of the two parties, very likely Labor as the established party, and then that party would probably have enough to win. I don't see why that is preferable to the way that the election works under AV, where Labor and the Greens should have to make a case for why voters should prefer one of them over the other. There are of course still tactical scenarios (e.g. if you're a right-winger who particularly hates the Greens there's a case you should give your first preference to Labor rather that the Liberals if you think the Liberals can't win) but I don't think they're quite as pervasive. You could argue that the requirement for full preferencing in Australian style AV strengthens these blocs: if you're a Green supporter who really doesn't care for either of the two bigger parties you can't just vote 1. Green 2. Animal Justice (or whatever) and leave everything else blank, you have to put one of Labor or the Liberals above the other. Also, the fact that Australian parties give their voters a suggested ranking of the other parties ("How To Vote" cards) must strengthen the tendency to form blocs. But I suspect that in this case the Liberals are far enough behind Labor + Greens that those things don't matter. |
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Georg Ebner
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Post by Georg Ebner on May 27, 2022 17:54:05 GMT
They have provided also another article on the obvious corRelation of Coal.-losses and Chinese. |
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YL
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Post by YL on May 27, 2022 17:56:42 GMT
Not even in the Senate any more, thankfully. The "above the line" option now consists of ordering the party lists. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2022 18:02:18 GMT
Brisbane is a classic illustration of what's wrong with a voting system that rewards not who comes first but whoever avoids coming last. Thus the eventual outcome rests on a desperate struggle between Labor and the Greens not to come last.
As already pointed out neither is going to come last. What is effectively happening here is that there is a Labor/Green bloc which between the two parties commands well over half the vote, and that it does indeed function as a bloc as far as the votes cast are concerned is demonstrated by the preference flow between the two parties. The system ensures that whichever party comes out on top within that bloc will win, and given that the bloc has considerably more votes than the Liberals that seems entirely reasonable. Indeed AIUI AV was originally introducted in Australia to ensure that the bloc formed by the predecessor parties to the current Liberals and Nationals was able to behave in this way without losing out to Labor. If Australia used FPTP then a likely situation would be that the bulk of the voters for the Labor/Green bloc would tactically settle on one of the two parties, very likely Labor as the established party, and then that party would probably have enough to win. I don't see why that is preferable to the way that the election works under AV, where Labor and the Greens should have to make a case for why voters should prefer one of them over the other. There are of course still tactical scenarios (e.g. if you're a right-winger who particularly hates the Greens there's a case you should give your first preference to Labor rather that the Liberals if you think the Liberals can't win) but I don't think they're quite as pervasive. You could argue that the requirement for full preferencing in Australian style AV strengthens these blocs: if you're a Green supporter who really doesn't care for either of the two bigger parties you can't just vote 1. Green 2. Animal Justice (or whatever) and leave everything else blank, you have to put one of Labor or the Liberals above the other. Also, the fact that Australian parties give their voters a suggested ranking of the other parties ("How To Vote" cards) must strengthen the tendency to form blocs. But I suspect that in this case the Liberals are far enough behind Labor + Greens that those things don't matter. I've often thought that this must actually weaken minor parties. If Labour in the UK lose enough left-wing voters to the Greens it hands seats to the Tories so we have to make at least some effort to win them over. If Australian Labor lose those votes, they eventually get them back anyway because the vast majority will still preference them over the Coalition. Unless of course the Greens get enough votes to actually get a couple of MPs elected but even at this election they're only going to get 4 or 5 out of 150 |
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iain
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Post by iain on May 27, 2022 18:23:34 GMT
I've often thought that this must actually weaken minor parties. If Labour in the UK lose enough left-wing voters to the Greens it hands seats to the Tories so we have to make at least some effort to win them over. If Australian Labor lose those votes, they eventually get them back anyway because the vast majority will still preference them over the Coalition. Unless of course the Greens get enough votes to actually get a couple of MPs elected but even at this election they're only going to get 4 or 5 out of 150 I think this is half correct - the AV helps minor parties to make the initial breakthrough to challenge, but possibly hurts them when it comes to actually winning a seat (though in a UK context it'd likely help the Lib Dems of course). The compulsory preferencing almost definitely hurts them, firstly for the reason you state, but also because of LNP preferences favouring Labor. With optional preferencing most of those votes would probably exhaust (in fact they might marginally help the Greens), but in a compulsory situation most Liberal voters just follow the How to Vote card. This used to help the Greens (and was how they first won Melbourne) but since the Liberals switched their recommendation, it's made it all but impossible for the Greens to get over the top in Inner City Labor seats - indeed, the one case where they have managed it in the last few years was South Brisbane in the Queensland state election, when the Liberals reversed their usual HTV to take out a Labor Minister. |
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Post by timrollpickering on May 27, 2022 21:47:28 GMT
Brisbane is a classic illustration of what's wrong with a voting system that rewards not who comes first but whoever avoids coming last. Thus the eventual outcome rests on a desperate struggle between Labor and the Greens not to come last. As already pointed out neither is going to come last. Not last overall but last of those three parties. There is also a bloc of voters that prefer Labor to the Greens but can only get that outcome if the votes fall in the right order. And in some past elections with maverick independents there was almost a game of scissors-paper-stone in which each of the three last two combinations would produce a different winner. This is the whole "why do only some voters get their second preferences counted?" question from our referendum that many couldn't get their heads round. In this situation AV means that Labor/Green and Green/Labor voters can get the other if they can't get their first preference elected but LNP/Labor voters don't get their second choice unless Labor can get into the last two either by overtaking the Greens or by the LNP falling back. And here it's even more perverse as Labor are currently in second place on first preferences but seem likely to get pushed into third on smaller party preferences. |
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johnloony
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Post by johnloony on May 27, 2022 22:55:54 GMT
It always amazes me that more votes aren't spoilt when you consider that if there are 10 candidates the voter only needs to make a slight mistake and the vote would be invalidated. But they must be used to it in Australia since it's been going for about 100 years. Most simply give it up and choose "above the line", i e. the preFerences get distributed automatically by their favorite party's order. q.v. “How to ruin STV” (also applicable to AV in this instance) www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE12/P7.HTM |
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Georg Ebner
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Post by Georg Ebner on May 27, 2022 23:07:46 GMT
Most simply give it up and choose "above the line", i e. the preFerences get distributed automatically by their favorite party's order. q.v. “How to ruin STV” (also applicable to AV in this instance) www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE12/P7.HTMI like STV because of delivering us, how the transfers were flowing; and hate STV - apart from the endless countingProcess - because of appearing "perfect" and "totally fair" to all those, who have not had a closer look at it. |
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YL
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Post by YL on May 28, 2022 7:08:59 GMT
As already pointed out neither is going to come last. Not last overall but last of those three parties. There is also a bloc of voters that prefer Labor to the Greens but can only get that outcome if the votes fall in the right order. You mean the ones I mentioned in the part of my post that you snipped? Please don't try to portray me as an AV fanatic who thinks it's a perfect system; I happen to think it is mildly preferable to FPTP, but I am aware that odd things can happen around order of elimination. Please give an example. Again, if you read my post clearly you will see that I am aware of this. But I don't think LNP/Labor (or LNP/Greens) functions as a "bloc" in the way I intended it: parties should not be assumed to be equidistant from each other, and here Labor and the Greens are clearly closer to each other than either is to the LNP; likewise, elsewhere in Australia, the Nationals and Liberals are much closer to each other than either is to Labor. FPTP ignores this, or rather encourages massive tactical voting. Why is that perverse? It's exactly what would happen (modulo the effect of forced preferencing I suppose, but I'm not going to defend that aspect of the Australian system, because I don't like it) if those parties hadn't stood in the first place. One of the main advantages of AV is that it removes the lazy "it's a wasted vote" argument for not voting for your real first preference party. |
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Post by jamesdoyle on May 28, 2022 7:50:10 GMT
And meanwhile, Brisbane is called for the Greens.
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Post by greenhert on May 28, 2022 8:05:46 GMT
And meanwhile, Brisbane is called for the Greens. Which begs the question, how often has a candidate who finished third on 1st preference votes been able to win on the 2-candidate preferred vote in an Australian election? |
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Post by iainbhx on May 28, 2022 8:24:01 GMT
And meanwhile, Brisbane is called for the Greens. Which begs the question, how often has a candidate who finished third on 1st preference votes been able to win on the 2-candidate preferred vote in an Australian election? Andrew Wilkie won Denison, TAS in 2010 from third. Green preferences put him above the Libs and Lib preferences swamped the ALP. He's been in first place in every contest in Denison and its successor Clark since. |
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iain
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Post by iain on May 28, 2022 9:31:43 GMT
The Greens have won Prahran in the Victorian Parliament from third twice IIRC (though may only be once).
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Post by greenhert on May 28, 2022 9:37:56 GMT
The Greens have won Prahran in the Victorian Parliament twice IIRC (though may only be once). Definitely twice, and Sam Hibbins was indeed third on 1st preference votes in both 2014 and 2018. It is the wealthier part of the federal Macnamara (fka Melbourne Ports) electoral division. |
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Post by minionofmidas on May 28, 2022 15:54:52 GMT
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Post by timrollpickering on May 28, 2022 16:00:05 GMT
And meanwhile, Brisbane is called for the Greens. Which begs the question, how often has a candidate who finished third on 1st preference votes been able to win on the 2-candidate preferred vote in an Australian election? There was a victory from fourth place in 1972. IIRC it was a seat where the sitting MP was deselected and restood as an independent, both the Liberal and Country parties fielded new candidates and DLP transfers got the non-holding Coalition candidate ahead of the sitting member whose preferences in turn wreaked revenge on their old party who in turn transferred against Labor. Meanwhile Labor moved ever closer to wanting optional preferential voting (and this was one of the many bills used to trigger the 1975 double dissolution). EDIT: And the one success story of a deselected MP from that era, Sam Benson in Batman in 1966 (when else?!) was a case of winning from third thanks to DLP preferences. |
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Post by timrollpickering on May 28, 2022 16:27:19 GMT
I'd have to fish out the independent cases and they're assuming the HTVs would have had a significant impact. ISTR there was also a Liberal-Labor-Green mess in a Melbourne seat where the sitting Labor MP hated the Greens so much he was putting the Liberals above them and this may have been when the Liberals were still putting the Greens above Labor on the HTVs. Isn't this the thing called the Condorcet Paradox? But the system is blind to how close particular parties are to each other. It's a question of how it delivers to the voters and I don't think here it's delivered the most popular second choice. Tactical voting takes place on a much smaller scale than many claim. Perhaps because they spend too much time at certain dinner parties? It can also take place under AV and this result is an example of how it could work if a sizeable block of LNP voters could be persuaded to invert their first preferences to keep the Greens out. Only if you assume every voter for those parties would have made the same set of preferences lest their first choice. But it adds to the odd outcome that the vagaries of preferences have led to this outcome. Whereas under most other systems Labor would likely have won whether second ballot, Borda, Condorcet and possibly even FPTP. |
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jamie
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Post by jamie on May 29, 2022 0:15:30 GMT
ISTR there was also a Liberal-Labor-Green mess in a Melbourne seat where the sitting Labor MP hated the Greens so much he was putting the Liberals above them and this may have been when the Liberals were still putting the Greens above Labor on the HTVs. Thats basically the current Macnamara which is still in doubt. Michael Danby was on the right wing of Labour and simultaneously will have done better than generic Labor on 2PP vs the Liberals but also helped make the Greens competitive in the 1st place. Its a 3-way tie this year but the Liberals can no longer win. If its Liberal vs Labor then Labor easily win thanks to Green transfers. If its Liberal vs Green then the Greens win thanks to Labor transfers (its a trendy inner metropolitan seat after all). If its Labor vs Green then Labor win on Liberal transfers (Labor are more moderate but also this division has a large Liberal Jewish vote that greatly prefers a Jewish Labor MP to the 'pro-Palestinian' Greens). The HTV cards are now more normal, and the voters will have little problem following them. |
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iang
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Post by iang on May 29, 2022 7:08:37 GMT
Has David Pocock definitely won a Senate seat in Canberra? Been looking but can't find confirmation
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myth11
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Post by myth11 on May 29, 2022 9:37:04 GMT
And meanwhile, Brisbane is called for the Greens. I guessing the counters have better info than the web site as there 15k votes to count with 5k more that could come in. |
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