Discussion: Two party preferred

Definitely, at our initial booth count the Liberal candidate was well in front but the Labor candidate received 40 of 43 of the Green candidate's preferences to then almost draw level. It was much quicker distributing the Green candidate's preferences than any of the others given the Labor candidate almost always received a 2!

If the voting system were different - say, if it was first past the post with no preferences, as it is in the UK, US and Canada - it's likely that both voter behaviour and the party system itself would be different too. In the US, for example, meaningful independent/third party candidacies are rare and the combined Democratic-Republican vote is usually near or above 95%.

I don't think there are a great many Aus voters that know how the preferential system works. Trying to teach people preferences is like trying to teach them how to indicate correctly at roundabouts - it'll never stick.

Many people ask about preferences when handing out HTV's. I think many people understand the big picture and why they count. Enough to make our system worthwhile.

Before I started working at elections I thought the preferential system meant that if your #1 candidate didn't get in, then your vote went to the person they wanted it to go to rather than looking at where your 2, 3, 4, etc. was ordered. That's why I thought the parties went to great lengths to acquire other party preferences instead of it being your choice where your preferences went. So it's really for the how to vote cards (if you take one) that all those backroom deals matter.

Until the 1980s, there were no party names on ballot papers, so how-to-vote cards were critical in that context.

One interesting example of the influence of how-to-vote cards that go against the inclination of their voters is the Animal Justice Party. The AJP quite often give preferences to Labor over the Greens - I'm not sure whether this is because of Labor governments having delivered on some of their policy priorities (like banning puppy farms in Victoria), bad blood with the Greens over the ACT kangaroo cull a few years back, or something else. My experience is when the AJP hand out cards preferencing Labor, their preferences normally run about 60-40 to the Greens; if they don't hand out cards, then it's more like 90-10.

Has anyone figured out yet whether or not UAP & One Nation swapped preferences?

I once misheard "two part preferred" as "two partly preferred" - which seemed about right at the time.

Jenny, I'm not sure but does it matter? I'd guess you could almost do the maths here in the ACT without getting into double digits. :-)

My booth didn't really provide any insight into what UAP and One Nation preferences were doing since there were so few of them (and neither had anyone handing out). What did interest me is that the LNP gave One Nation second preferences in the Senate in Queensland (at least), and nobody seemed to bat an eyelid, whereas in the past One Nation would have been considered irredeemably toxic as a major-party preference destination.

Eric, guess I was curious about whether or not they trusted each other enough to do so...didn't even Antony Green say that he had no idea where either of those parties was directing their preferences!