I am finding the way preferences work to be somewhat confusing.

Say we have 5 candidates a b c d e

a gets 35%
b gets 35%
c gets 12%
d gets 10%
e gets 8%


e gives his votes to who??

does all 8% of his votes go to who he has done a preference deal with??


Or as ppl say you can control who your preferences go to, so

of e 8% of votes, half preferenced a as number 2 on the vote and half preferenced b as number 2.


So e gives his votes to who was preferenced 2nd does that mean candidate a and b get half of e total votes?? each improving their vote to 39% assuming none of the other candidates where preferenced second???


I can't see electoral officials sorting through thousands of votes for the candidates that get the lowest number of votes and then sorting those votes to the second preference, that would take hours and results come in way quicker than could be manually sorted??

What Greens said is true, but also, you do get to choose who gets your preferences. You do not have to follow the how to vote card of your favourite party, if you do not wish to do so.

However the senate is much more tricky. If you just put a '1" above the line of your chosen party, then you have no say in where your preferences go. That's why a lot of people like to number every box below the line - that way you can decide exactly where your preferences go, it is just a lot more involved and time consuming.

OK so if e is removed first and the preferences allocated, we then come to d


what happens to d preferences that had e as number 2????

e is out gone see ya, but what happenes to the votes of those who preferenced e 2nd but voted for d

The votes are only counted till a winner is decided at the polling place, all votes are eventually counted but only enough to determine a result on the day.

i.e. in a very substantial number of seats the first preference plus the above the line vote preferences from one or two other groups will decide the result.

i.e. if there are 100,000 voters in an electorate and the Liberals get 40,000 direct votes and one nation have a deal to preference the Liberals and they get 11,000 above the line votes then the Libs have 51% of the vote easily counted at the poling stations on the day of the election.

Each booth will provide the above the line numbers for all major groups. Labor Liberal Nat Greens Democrats one nation, family first etc. The totals are easily assembled.

The few electorates where it is real close and it takes a few days or weeks even are the places where they have to actually count all the votes.

woof woof wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2013 at 10:51pm:


The reality is that they are only going to count the Labor and Liberal votes in most electorates unless they have to count something else. In this case if someone gets to 51% without these votes they will not be counted at that time.

i.e. the pile of something else is high.

woof woof wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2013 at 10:48pm:


Your assumption that d is eliminated next is wrong. We don't know who will be eliminated next until e's preferences have been distributed. It's possible that many of those who voted e preferenced d. This might be because the two candidates have similar policies. In this case a strong flow of preferences from e to d will see c eliminated.

If e's preferences don't save d, d will be eliminated. As for the d voters who preferenced e 2nd, it's then necessary to jump to their 3rd preference.

It might sound complicated, but the process is quite straightforward once you get your head around a couple of basic rules.

woof woof

While I am no fan of preferences, I do struggle to model a better system especially for the scenario your describing.

The way it works is that they count first preferences, if there is a clear winner ..... more then 50% then they declare the seat won

If that fails they add second preferences and if there is a clear winner ..... more then 50% then they declare the seat won

They keep following this process until there are no preferences left which means that mathematically one candidate should have 50%+ of the votes.

I guess its possible that 2 candidates could end up on 50:50 which I assume they would have to call a new election for that seat ..... I can't recall it happening but its mathematically possible ..... so is winning lotto.

Can you suggest a more efficient way to determine who is best to represent the electorate ?

One change I would prefer is they just count 2nd preferences and whoever has the highest vote count wins (even if its not > 50%)

The last state election I only had 3 candidates. Someone who votes Greens would not want their vote to count for the libs, which is possible in a close race. Not that it mattered as I am in safe Liberal seat.

Similarly people who vote Liberal don't want their vote to count to greens

The vast majority of people support the Libs/Nats or the ALP ...... based on current polling that is about 80% this group does not think about who they like as a third option or forth etc.....

greggerypeccary wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2013 at 8:40am:


You sure Gregg???  I thought that E's #2 votes are distributed prior to his/her exclusion from the next count.