How do preferences work in australian elections

For information on the voting systems used for federal elections please visit the Australian Electoral Commission website. In a local government election for a single member divided council, and when voting for the mayor in all councils, you have the choice to vote for one, some or all candidates on the ballot paper; this is optional preferential voting OPV.

OPV requires an elector to mark the ballot paper to indicate their preference. Your preference order won't be automatically allocated; only you can decide where your preferences go.

If the candidates you vote for are eliminated from the count, your vote will be exhausted. Vote for only one candidate by placing a one 1 , tick or cross in the square opposite the name of your preferred candidate. Vote for some or all by placing a one 1 in the box of your preferred candidate.

You can then number some or all of remaining boxes in order of your preference according to the instructions on the ballot paper. Next, the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes overall is excluded from the count. In the example below, that's 2 votes. Now, the next candidate with the lowest number of votes overall is excluded. In the example here, that's 6 votes. The exclusion process continues until just two candidates remain.

Once the result is clear, when no other outcome is mathematically possible, the ECQ declares the successful candidate. Another teenage girl Girl 1 is standing behind the sofa with DVD cases in her hands. Girl 1: Sparrowman? It looks like it is The scary thing from Horror Lake. Girl 1 sits down on the sofa and points the remote control at the TV.

She and Girl 2 look unhappy but the boys look happy. Girls 2 and 3 are holding each other, and Girl 2 has her face covered by a pillow. The boys look as if they are enjoying the movie. Narrator: Wait a second! Narrator: Two people will love scary things but the rest of the group might hate it. And do you really want 4 out of 6 people having nightmares? A wide shot of all the teenagers sitting on the sofa.

Above their heads are the DVD covers of their first and second choice of movie. The Henry Porter covers are circled.

So 4 out of 6 people are going to be fairly happy. A montage of people voting in federal elections, including a woman being handed her ballot papers. Narrator: Instead of people just choosing the one candidate they like best, they give each one a number; 1 for their favourite, 2 for their second favourite, 3 for their third and so on. In a lounge room, 6 teenagers 4 girls and 2 boys are sitting on a black corner sofa. Four of the teenagers disappear, leaving 2 girls left on the sofa.

Any votes of these elected candidates, which are surplus to the quota, are transferred to the remaining candidates at a reduced value known as a transfer value. This means that electors indicate their preferred candidate s , and the candidate with the most votes is elected. Where there are multiple vacancies, the candidate with the most votes is elected first, and the candidate with the second highest number of votes is elected second, and the process continues until all vacancies are filled.

Voting system for the Legislative Assembly Candidates are elected to the Legislative Assembly through full preferential voting. Voting system for the Legislative Council Proportional representation is the voting system used in multi-member electorates such as the Western Australian Legislative Council. The result of proportional representation has been that since the numbers of the Senate have usually been relatively evenly divided between government and opposition supporters with the balance of power often being held by minority parties or independents, whose political influence has increased as a consequence.

Governments have frequently been confronted with the ability of the Opposition and minority party or independent Senators to combine to defeat or modify government measures in the Senate.

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