Comments on: ACT election: October 18

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:34:06 +0000

By: feral sparrowhawk

feral sparrowhawk — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:33:46 +0000

Actually Adam, electronic voting would mean fewer informal votes, not more. Electronic voting would allow the computer to tell people if their vote was informal, so they could have another go if it was an accident, not deliberate.

However, all your other arguments are quite valid, and easily outweigh the “we won’t have to wait for the results” argument.

By: mogfeatures

mogfeatures — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:53:30 +0000

Re the 1998 result – the majority of seats v majority of the vote thingo wouldn’t be such a big deal except that every now and again there will be a Howard apologist claiming a popular mandate from the 1998 election for the introduction of the GST in 2000.

By: Adam in Canberra

Adam in Canberra — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:42:47 +0000

Obviously the legitimacy of an electoral system based on single-member seats depends on the seats having approximately equal numbers of voters. In SA under the “Playmander” the state constitution said that there must be 2 country seats for every Adelaide seat. Since by the 1960s Adelaide had twice the population of the rest of the state, that meant that country seats had on average 25% the enrolment of city seats. Labor won the 1962 election by a wide margin in terms of votes, but not in seats. They only won in 1965 because suburban sprawl beyond the metro Adelaide boundary created new “country” seats which Labor won. Once Playford retired the Libs stopped trying to defend the malapportionment and Hall carried his election reform. Now the only seriously malapportioned chamber left in Australia is the WA Leg Council – thanks to the Greens.

By: Ben Raue

Ben Raue — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:30:28 +0000

I agree with Adam about electronic voting. There are minor benefits and minor risks, but they aren’t worth it.

The only system that could work would be if a person voted on a computer then had their vote printed out in front of them and they then put them in a box old-style. This would solve the problem of accidental informal voting and incomprehensible voting, and would allow for a much faster count (either by counting the electronic version with paper as a backup, or by using a computer to count the printed ballots), but wouldn’t help much with paper. You need a paper trail.

And Mary, you can’t expect John Howard to not claim victory if he wins. A victory is a victory. It’s a much bigger problem than that. You can’t fix electoral reform by having a new election whenever the result is more grievously out of whack then we are willing to tolerate.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:26:03 +0000

Besides which, what reason is there to think that a new election would have produced a different result?

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:24:45 +0000

Steele Hall didn’t do that, Mary. He governed for two years after the 1968 election, during which time he introduced electoral reform. An election was then held after the government was defeated in parliament over an unrelated matter.

By: Mary Hannah Wade

Mary Hannah Wade — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:24:20 +0000

Steele Hall recognised that getting a majority of seats without a majority of the vote was unworkable – Hawke and Howard should have as well

By: Adam in Canberra

Adam in Canberra — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:21:42 +0000

And Hawke should have done the same thing in 1990 when Peacock polled a majority of the 2PV but still lost? I don’t think so. Our electoral system is based on winning seats, not on aggregate votes.

By: Mary Hannah Wade

Mary Hannah Wade — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:07:18 +0000

Adam:

In ‘98, Howard should have done a Steele Hall and resigned and formally advised the G-G to appoint Beazley as PM pending a fresh election