Preferential Treatment
February 18, 2019 8:41 PM   Subscribe

Dennis the Election Koala gives Ken the Voting Dingo an important lesson in civics! Patrick Alexander explains Australia's electoral system for the House of Representatives, instant-runoff voting, in cartoon form.
posted by zamboni (34 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
NB: This is an update to the version linked from here.
posted by pompomtom at 8:47 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]


Don't forget that voting is compulsory too.
posted by dangerousdan at 8:51 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Couple comments deleted. Just a pre-emptive nudge, let's not make this about US politics/election system.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:27 PM on February 18, 2019 [4 favorites]


I'm so glad the Nice Party has kept that last platform plank.
posted by RakDaddy at 9:43 PM on February 18, 2019


Shame the AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA Party has gone by the wayside.
posted by RakDaddy at 9:44 PM on February 18, 2019


Start flexing those voting muscles.
YESSSSS

I am so delighted that I get to vote for an independent. (Andrew Wilkie - now the member for Clark [partly responsible for the Hare-Clark voting system] - which is even better as a voting system - but be prepared for the maths nerd on that one)

Time to drag out the atlas to find out where the electorate of Clark [+++ formerly Denison ---] is.

My explanation - the relationship Australia has to the rest of the world, is the relationship Tasmania has to Australia - some small island down south; next stop Antarctica; lots of water; pack a jumper/windcheater
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 10:19 PM on February 18, 2019 [2 favorites]


I'd be a lot more excited for the upcoming federal election if Shorten wasn't a rapist.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 10:35 PM on February 18, 2019


What is the logic behind requiring voters to fill out a number for everyone? Is that common in other IRV systems?
posted by nat at 10:56 PM on February 18, 2019 [1 favorite]


They spelt strewth wrong.

What is the logic behind requiring voters to fill out a number for everyone? Is that common in other IRV systems?

Numbering all boxes isn't mandatory in some Australian state elections but is for Federal lower house elections. Federal upper house (Senate) allows voters to put a 1 in one box 'above the line' to vote for a party bloc, or number every box below the line, which may mean putting a number in over 150 boxes.

Our American cousins may think this compulsory voting thing is a bit bolshie, but we have the highly respected independent non-partisan national AEC and you don't so nya nya nya.
posted by Thella at 12:11 AM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


I do wish Dennis would also do the Senate.
posted by pompomtom at 1:19 AM on February 19, 2019


I’ll take compulsory voting over whateverthefuck you bloody Yanks have done with actual democracy, thank you very much.
posted by prismatic7 at 1:45 AM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]


This isn't the place to pivot into #auspol discussion with regards to our upcoming election, is it? Because, oh. my. god. how does this government still exist
posted by Panthalassa at 3:31 AM on February 19, 2019 [6 favorites]


I mean, I should mention I thought this was a great update to an all-time classic cartoon as well. Also I hope the author gets enough support to do the series of electoral system comics he's been contemplating! But man do I have Feelings about the state of the federal government.
posted by Panthalassa at 3:39 AM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


I just like that I can vote for the My Kind Of Loonies Party safe in the knowledge that my preferences will flow to the Slightly Less Worse Party and thus I'm not "splitting the vote" and risking that the Burn All The Things Party gets elected again.

This also means that My Kind Of Loonies get electoral funding and that even though I'm in a very safe seat indeed, my local Slightly Less Worse candidate gets to look at all the preferences and maybe, just maybe, work themselves up to making the Slightly Less Worse Party slightly better.

Perhaps I'm getting too optimistic.
posted by nickzoic at 4:06 AM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


This actually really helped the local hackspace with their elections, because we kept on trying to explain how preferential voting worked, but nothing quite works like a dingo voting for hugs and a cup of tea.
posted by Katemonkey at 4:09 AM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


How long has IRV been in place in Australia?
posted by eirias at 4:18 AM on February 19, 2019


@eirias According to wikipedia since 1919.

Doesn't mean we're not in an awful mess a lot of the time anyway.
posted by nickzoic at 4:28 AM on February 19, 2019


I think that this is a great way to elect a mayor, or a president, but not a parliament, or a congress .... the problem comes when you have a party that gets say 20% of the votes, but who's supporters are geographically spread out so that they are never able to win a seat, in FPP, or IRV.

This is why we use MMP in NZ (and in Germany)
posted by mbo at 4:55 AM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


I think that this is a great way to elect a mayor, or a president, but not a parliament, or a congress .... the problem comes when you have a party that gets say 20% of the votes, but who's supporters are geographically spread out so that they are never able to win a seat, in FPP, or IRV.

Yep, IRV is for single seat elections. The virtue of proportional representation is really a separate and larger question. As I understand it, New Zealand uses FPP all the time - for the electorate vote component of their MMP system.

Australia's attempt to address federal proportionality is the Senate's Single transferable vote system. Hopefully the cartoon explaining that will be slightly smaller than a bedsheet.
posted by zamboni at 6:32 AM on February 19, 2019


Yanks have done with actual democracy

Started with plutocracy. Had a war about the form of plutocracy. Settled on a form of plutocracy.
posted by pompomtom at 6:53 AM on February 19, 2019


Where's my Horace the Approval Vote Wombat to explain to Ken the Voting Dingo how voting his first choice can actually blow up in his face.
posted by fleacircus at 7:08 AM on February 19, 2019


Federal upper house (Senate) allows voters to put a 1 in one box 'above the line' to vote for a party bloc, or number every box below the line, which may mean putting a number in over 150 boxes.

Looks like Dennis needs to weigh in on the Senate as well. This is the old rules, from before the 2016 reforms.

AEC: Voting in the Senate
How to complete the ballot paper
On the white Senate ballot paper, you need to either:
  • number at least six boxes above the line for the parties or groups of your choice, or
  • number at least 12 boxes below the line for individual candidates of your choice.
posted by zamboni at 7:14 AM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


They spelt strewth wrong.

Yeah nah, struth's a valid alternate spelling.
posted by zamboni at 7:28 AM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is lulz but we could really use a comic like that here in the parts of the US that are experimenting with ranked choice voting. The main complaint in recent elections is "it is too complicated", followed swiftly by "but how does the #2 person end up winning? it's not fair!". Some simple way to explain it to folks quickly would help a lot. Perhaps instead of a Koala we could have a raccoon, and a coyote instead of a dingo.
posted by Nelson at 7:52 AM on February 19, 2019


"but how does the #2 person end up winning? it's not fair!"

I find the best way to explain it to my students (I teach civics and legal studies) is to frame it differently: it’s not a system designed to elect the most popular candidate, it’s designed to elect the least unpopular candidate. It’s a system of compromise.
posted by robcorr at 12:42 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


Our American cousins may think this compulsory voting thing is a bit bolshie

And to be pedantic, in practice it's only compulsory attendance. In the voting booth you can do whatever you want: leave it blank or write FUCK EM ALL or draw a dick pic before folding it and slipping it into the ballot box, and plenty of people do just that.

In other words, it's effectively opt-out, not opt-in.
posted by nnethercote at 6:21 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


it’s designed to elect the least unpopular candidate

Certainly how I vote. I wish you could indicate a reverse-sort, because realistically I'm numbering from the nutcases I hate the most, down to the least-worst option I can discern.

Was discussing the idea of including a none-of-the-above candidate the other day and the consensus was that we'd end up in a perpetual election - Australians being Australians and Australian politicians being Australian politicians.

in practice it's only compulsory attendance.

This is one of the things I like about it. Without compulsory attendance there's a significant incentive to not vote (yes, I understand that to some this is a feature rather than a bug). If you have to turn up anyway, you may as well vote.
posted by pompomtom at 6:44 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


it’s designed to elect the least unpopular candidate. It’s a system of compromise.

I feel like it's not though.. Compromise candidates can be eliminated quickly if they don't have a lot of first votes. That's the opposite of what should happen.

Like, say your family is voting on what to have for dinner. You like pizza; it's your first choice, and actually it's everyone else's second choice. Everyone likes pizza. However, your parents are putting tacos first. They're okay with pizza but tacos are cheaper. But you and your two siblings are completely sick of tacos. Your brother and sister are on team pizza but have joined together in a first vote for waffles. You scoff, but IRV tells them it's okay to vote their ideal first. SO, the votes are tallied and pizza is eliminated immediately because it has only one first-choice vote. The winner is going to be either waffles or tacos, hated by 60% of the family either way.

To me this isn't a complicated edge case, it's a simple case that a compromise-finding voting system should be able to get right.
posted by fleacircus at 6:53 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


What voting system gets pizza up? Is that what Condorcet is about?
posted by pompomtom at 7:00 PM on February 19, 2019


I think like Borda count, range voting, and approval vote would probably pick pizza. No voting system is perfect so it's sort of picking your poison.
posted by fleacircus at 9:28 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]


To me this isn't a complicated edge case, it's a simple case that a compromise-finding voting system should be able to get right.

A few electoral analysts I follow on Twitter have pointed out that in IRV, first-choice votes have a particular importance. Imo this corresponds nicely with the importance we tend to place on our first-class votes in real life. In your example, if the compromise vote is pizza, and only one person votes for the compromise vote, then compromising clearly isn't much of a priority for the group as a whole.
posted by Panthalassa at 1:51 AM on February 20, 2019


This is why we use MMP in NZ (and in Germany)

Isn't that a party-list system, where you vote for a party rather than a candidate, and trust the party to allocate your leftover preferences?
posted by acb at 1:56 AM on February 20, 2019


What is really important to the success of preferential voting in Australia is that people here believe in it. Even though there are fringe cases where voting 1 for your preferred candidate could ultimately hurt them, this is rarely the case in practice and is not a factor in people's considerations. Instead, voters - as a rule - will vote 1 for their true first preference. As a result we are getting much more accurate information on what the electorate actually wants.

It really does allow parties on the same side of politics to run against each other in the same seat without worrying about cannibalizing each other's vote. And it really does allow independents with decent support to make a viable run for office.

Just look at the by-election held a few months ago to replace Malcolm Turnbull (who resigned from parliament after being removed as Prime Minister).

The highly-respected independent Kerryn Phelps trailed the governing party's candidate by 29% to 43% after the first round of voting. But she eventually won by 51% to 49% thanks to the preferences of Labor voters. The other two independents in Australia's House of Representatives also initially won their seats after trailing on the first round. Notably, now that they are the incumbents they have gone on to win the plurality vote as well.

Nat asked earlier:
"What is the logic behind requiring voters to fill out a number for everyone? Is that common in other IRV systems?"

There are two reasons behind this.

1. It wants everyone to make a choice between all candidates no matter how reprehensible they may seem. Ie. 'Yes, we know you think the "I Hate Puppies Party" party is terrible, but if it came down to them or the "I Dislike Puppies Party" who would you rather keep out?'.

2. It guards against what happened in Queensland in recent decades where some parties ran a very prominent "Just Vote 1" campaigns in which they encouraged supporters not to list any further preferences. The idea behind it was to turn the election into a de facto FPTP contest, which they believed would favour their candidates. Queensland has now moved back to requiring voters to number every box, while New South Wales still leaves it up the individual voter.

The argument for proportional representation is another case (one I support), but if you are holding an election and there can only be one winner then preferential voting is a huge improvement over FPTP and should be encouraged . It also gets people used to the idea of ranking candidates, which makes the introduction of STV in multi-member districts more likely (which I think would be a very good thing).
posted by decent rooms and a bath at 4:14 AM on February 20, 2019 [2 favorites]


In your example, if the compromise vote is pizza, and only one person votes for the compromise vote, then compromising clearly isn't much of a priority for the group as a whole.

This would be quite a change to the sales pitch for IRV. Someone will need to update Dennis the Voting Koala.
posted by fleacircus at 4:08 AM on February 21, 2019


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