This is sheer and utter curiosity... for my Australian voting friends.

[reynardo]

because in my electorate, only 400 out of 72,000 voters voted below the line. More than 2000 voted informally.
[Poll #1094348]

Comments

[tenner.livejournal.com]

I could probably Google this, but could you please explain the whole "line" deal for those of us 'Merkuns?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

When voting for the Senate, you have two options: you can either accept a party's prepackaged preference list (e.g. vote for Labor, and have your preferences flow according to whatever deals Labour has made), or you can order all the candidates yourself, which usually means numbering about 70-odd people, some from parties you've never heard of. The former is called 'above the line' and the latter 'below the line' because of how Senate ballots are laid out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_voting_ticket

I vote below the line, because I generally don't want to accept a prepackaged deal (especially when the majors might be trading preferences with nutjobs like Family First), but the vast majority of people vote above the line - around 99%, I think - because it's faster and doesn't require you to decide whether you prefer the Fishing Party to the Shooters' And Fishing Party...

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

I am physically incapable of voting in your elections, but hopefully now your workers will have rights again, instead of wrongs.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

I'm a firm believer in making people check every little box instead of pulling the duh-Democrat lever, the duh-Republican lever, or whatever party's lever. It requires a little actual thought on the part of the voter, something we seem to be missing a lot of these days.

[verylisa.livejournal.com]

I normally vote above the line, but this year Mike tailored a how-to-vote-below-the-line preference list that I thought was nifty. So I painstakingly cobbled bits of his list into my own ranking.

Today it feels like a bit of a wasted effort. I probably won't bother next time, unless my first preference's above-the-line ticket has fundamental flaws. But if that was the case, they probably wouldn't be my first preference.

[qamar.livejournal.com]

Above the line was easy for me because the greens had a well-ordered preferences list.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

I think the fact that you have to fill in all of the boxes (in Federal elections? correct me if I'm wrong) is fairly stupid. So what after you fill in only one preference - if your vote drops off and is uncounted after, that's surely the voter's problem.

I think there would be a lot fewer informal votes and more considered voting if that simple measure were enacted - even one preference is certainly a clear vote.

[saluqi.livejournal.com]

When I lived in an electorate with a more colourful range of nutjobs, I used to vote below the line, working from the bottom up.

This time tho', I was basically happy with the preference arrangements the Greens had, so I went above the line.

[chaos-crafter.livejournal.com]

In some ways i think you are right, but I think you'd still want to encourage people to place more than the 6 required numbers for the six senate seats to be filled. Historically I believe below the line votes have occasionally had to be counted to th 36th place to place someone's vote.
Still, to be able to leave lots of people off and to know that no matter what happened they would never get your vote would be a useful extension of the system (i.e. my vote goes to one of these or to no-one)
The other one I'd like it to be able to number across the top, saying "let this party sort their own preferred order, but put them before this other lot"

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Voted above the line because I knew the preference flow and I've worked as a scrutineer to many times to make them suffer.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

The Australian voting system looks a little... crazy. It makes me wonder if even first past the post might be better than the 'you must order *everyone* on the ballot, or accept a party list of preferences' system.

[quatranoctal.livejournal.com]

Hit 'em below the belt ... er, line.

Of course, it helped that there were only 16 candidates (although it did mean that 16th was the lowest I could put Lisa Milat).

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Crumbs yeah. And wow - you got to not-vote for her. The best we had was the Pauline party.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

As another Brit, I've wondered about that as well. I don't know why it is that you can't just fill in 1-2-3-4, say, and leave the others blank, as is the case in most PR systems. Actually, I don't know of any other PR system which has this "all or nothing" choice, though I expect they exist.

Mind you, "informal voting" is a fantastic phrase; far better than "spoilt ballot"!

[sandypawozbun.livejournal.com]

I believe that in order to vote below the line, you need to know not only sufficient about the party for whom you are voting overall, but each and every other individual listed.

I didn't have the opportunity this time to look at all the candidates in the weeks and months leading up to the election.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

:::laughs:::

I've been a scrutineer lots of times too, but last time the hired workers were such whiny wretches, wanting Diebold machines no less, that I made 'em earn their crusts!

My numbering is very clear, though.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

Well, not really, if you have (as we did in my state) 68 candidates for 6 seats.

The party affiliations are on the ballot.

I was careful with the first six and had great fun with who I put in the last dozen slots (the scrutineers see this), but just went across the page filling in blanks for the rest.