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Tom Monto

Australia - variety of electoral methods used -- STV, IRV, list PR, Contingent Voting. And the difference they made

Updated: Oct 6

STV

STV is currently used to elect the upper house at the national level and upper houses in four states (NSW, South Aus., Western Aus., Victoria), and the lower houses in one state (Tasmania) and one Territory (ACT).


Of Australia's six states and two territories, only Queensland and Northern Territory do not use STV at all.


Upper house

Of Australia's six states and two territories, four (South Aus., West Aus., NSW, Victoria) use STV for election of members of their upper house. One uses Alternative Voting (IRV). (Three are unicameral so have no upper house.)


Lower house

Of Australia's six states and two territories, two (Tasmania and ACT) use STV for election of members of their lower house. The rest use Alternative Voting (IRV).


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Successes of STV


Tasmania

1909 first time STV used to elect all the members of the Leg. Assembly

three parties elected to the chamber.

each with about its proportional share of the 30 seats.

Only in Darwin did any party take as many as four of the district's six seats.

(while under FPTP, it is common for one party to take all the seats in an area or major city)

(voting system = five districts each with 6 seats)

Every district elected members of two parties, one elected members of three parties.

Anti-Socialist block took slight majority of seats but Liberals within rebelled,


the 1909 result:

Labour took 12 seats in the Assembly, and for the first time in Tasmania's history, held government for a week in October 1909 under Premier John Earle.

The Anti-Socialist had held power prior to 1909 and actually had brought STV in to prevent Labour getting majority of seats.

Labour did take 39 percent of the votes so with lucky vote placement over 30 districts, under FPTP might have won majority of votes in 19 districts, giving it majority government.

The use of STV likely helped prevent this occurence but also ensured that Labour got its due share of seats.


STV might have been partly responsible for holding Labour out of power until 1925, when with 48 percent of the vote, Labour finally took a majority of seats.

In 1916 Labour had actually been the most-popular party but had taken fewer seats than the Liberals. Perhaps the inefficiency of the DM-6 districts had allowed such disproportional results.

Or it was the low voter-per-member ratio? Only 50,000 votes were cast to elect 30 members.


Australian Capital Territory

1995 -- first time STV used to elect the Leg. Assembly

17 members elected in three districts DM 5, 5, 7

Members of three parties and two types of Independents were elected.

Two or three parties were elected in each district (plus an Independent in two districts).

Minority government elected but this was same as prior to the election.



NSW

1991 first time STV used to elect the Leg. Council

one of largest DM used in conjunction with STV in history of the world



Western Aus

1987 adopted STV to elect the Leg. Council


Southern Australia

1981 adopted STV to elect the Leg. Council


Victoria

2006 election == first time STV used to elect the Legislative Council

eight electoral regions, each returning five members.

2006 Labor won 19 of the 40 seats, the Liberals 15, the Greens three, the Nationals two and the Democratic Labour Party one. This was the first time the DLP had won a seat in the Victorian Parliament since 1955.

Since election of 2006 Victoria's Legislative Council has had 40 members serving four-year terms, elected from eight electoral regions, each returning five members.


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Alternative Voting

(which in North America is called Instant-Runoff Voting nowadays)


AV is currently used to elect:

lower house at the national level since 1918;


upper house in one state (Tasmania since 1909 Compulsory preferential voting (CPV);


lower houses in five states --

Western Aus. since 1911 (CPV),

Victoria since 1911 (1911-1916 OPV) 1916- (CPV),

South Aus. since 1936 (CPV),

Queensland since 1962 (1962-1992 CPV) (1992- Optional preferential voting (OPV);

NSW since 1980 (OPV),


lower house in one territory -- Northern Territory since 1980 (CPV).


AV was used in

Western Aus lower 1907-1911 (optional-preferential voting)

Victoria upper 1921-2006 (compulsory-preferential voting) (2006 switched to STV)

NSW upper 1928-1980 (compulsory-preferential voting)

Queensland lower 1962-1992 (compulsory-preferential voting)



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Contingent voting

(strict instant run-off voting - only two rounds used in the vote count)


used to elect:

Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1892 to 1942.

To date, this has been the longest continuous use of the system anywhere in the world.


NSW lower house 1926-1928


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list PR was used in

A.C.T. 1989-1995 modified d'Hondt

South Australia 1975-1981 modified largest remainder Droop


(info from Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 60, and more recent sources online)

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Chart of Electoral system used in the house or houses for each state and territory

(Queensland and Northern Territory shown in italics - they do not use STV at all)


Upper house Lower house

Commonwealth STV (DM 6-12) Alternative Voting (CP)


States

New South Wales STV (DM-21, staggered terms) Alternative Voting (CP)

Queensland Not applicable Alternative Voting (OP)

South Australia STV (DM-11, staggered terms) Alternative Voting (CP)

Tasmania Alternative Voting (CP) STV (DM-5)

Victoria STV (DM-5) Alternative Voting (CP)

Western Australia STV (DM 5-7) Alternative Voting (CP)


Territories

A.C.T. Not applicable STV (DM 5-7)

Northern Territory Not applicable Alternative Voting (CP)


OP = Optional preferences

CP = Compulsory preferences (some may have switched to optional preferences)

* Victoria held its first STV election in 2006


Take-away is every state and territory in Australia, except two, use STV to elect one or other of their houses.


from Farrell and McAllister, The Aus. Electoral System, p. 50-51, 60-61


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Date of state's adoption of STV shown in Montopedia blog: timeline of electoral reform

and below

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Why Aus. federal lower house use AV?

likely many factors and explanations 


Farrell and McAllister The Aus. Election Systems (p. 28-) says (paraphrased):in 1899 and 1900 PR expert Nansen wrote that FPTP and Block voting was badand that STV should be used for Senate and AV for Hof Rep.


because recent enfranchisement of women had evoked poltical friction, some states had done so and others not


adoption of that two-face policy would mean states more likely to approve it, and approval of election system by every state was necessary to make Aus. a country (versus coll. of British colonies)


STV for Senate was widely accepted. (thus Aus. uses fairer system for its Senate than its Hof Rep, compared to Canada where our Senate is not even elected)


Aus. first election (1902) in fact saw each state its own reps according to its own election law.(Canada 1917 - there was expectation that women who could vote in a province could vote in fed. election.unclear  and rarely pushed to see if true. whether or not this was true was obscured by fact that women who had relatives serving in war did have fed. vote, which of course overlapped with women who had prov. vote)


1902-Labour members were unsympathetic of STV to elect Senate (p. 30)


1902 Commonwealth Electoral Bill - called for AV for House and STV for Senate(Senate STV was to use Droop, optional-preferential voting (voters could mark as few prefs. as desired); Gregory method for surplus transfers -- all more or less unproven, untested and controversial (Even the great Catherine Helen Spence pushed for the Hare quota, not Droop)(Gregory method had never been used for government election anywhere in world until Aus.'s first (or second) national election.)


HofRep. AV -- intention was the House should be elected by a majoritarian system which entailed SMDs.generally accepted that AV was better than FPTP


debate of the bill was mostly on Senate's STV. (p. 32)

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so influence of politics, time constraint, need for state support (at time only Tasmania was using STV)and Nansen perhaps picking his fights, not wanting to push PR on Hof R if that meant risking loss of STV for Senate.


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Australia's switch to STV (relates to 1897, 1978 items)


Federal upper house (Senate) adopted STV in 1949.

used whole-vote method of transferring surplus votes (likely "exact method") from 1949 to 1984

1984 switched to Inclusive-Gregory Method system.

(IGM is flawed but Senate refuses to change to WIGM - see James Gilmour's Review of some aspects the Single Transferable Voting system for local elections in Wales)


Of Australia's six states and two territories, four (South Aus., West Aus., NSW, Victoria) use STV for election of members of their upper house. One uses Alternative Voting (IRV). (Three are unicameral so have no upper house.)

Of Australia's six states and two territories, two (Tasmania and ACT) use STV for election of members of their lower house. The rest use Alternative Voting (IRV).

(Only Queensland and Northern Territory do not use STV at all.)


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Timeline of states' adoption of STV (Territories too)


Tasmania adopted STV to elect all members of lower house in 1907. DM-5. Since 1909, (simple) Gregory Method was used for transfer of surplus votes. transfer value arrived at by dividing the surplus by the total number of votes in last parcel transferred to the candidate. for transfers, whole votes used, fractional remainders were not recorded (actually were, in a separate total named "votes lost by omitting fractional remainders")

(STV previously used to elect some members from 1897 to 1901. Farrell and McAllister, The Aus. Electoral System say whole-vote method ("exact method"?) was used 1897-1901) (see 1907)


NSW legislative council adopted STV in 1978. (prior to that, it elected state Senators by STV indirectly.) first 15, then 21 elected through STV at a time, in state-wide at-large contests. Whole-vote method used for transfers of surplus votes. (Farrell and McAllister, The Aus. Electoral System, p. 62)

(Lower house used STV in 1918)


South Australia upper house adopted STV in 1981. DM-11*


Western Australia upper house adopted STV in 1981 (1987?). DM 5-7*

2022 WA shifted to at-large district where 37-member Leg. Council are to be elected in one contest. (when this first put into effect in 2025, it will be largest DM under STV ever)


(Victoria's first STV first municipal election, for a restructured City of Richmond, in 1988)


Australian Capital Territory lower house adopted STV in 1995.

DM 5-7 (Inclusive-Gregory Method system)


Victoria upper house adopted STV in 2003. DM-5*


* simple GM operates same as Inclusive-Gregory Method system for first transfer of surplus votes, surplus votes belonging to candidates elected in the first Count. Thereafter they use Gregory Method just based on last parcel received by the elected candidate. (Farrell and McAllister, The Aus. Electoral System, p. 63)


(as well, a particular form of STV is used municipally but due to the group ticket voting option on the ballot, performs as a sort of quasi party list system. We see that in the systems used in the City of Melbourne and for NSW local government, which employ the above-the-line and below-the-line device.)


for more information, see

Narelle Miragliotta, Determining the Result: Transferring Surplus Votes in the Western

Australian Legislative Council (Perth: Western Australian Electoral Commission, 2002)


Ireland and Malta adopted national STV around 1920. Neither are federations so government elections held only at national and municipal levels. Both use STV for municipal elections.


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An Australian STV PR organization said this of difference between STV and list PR:


Party List systems - which are party-based, and thus also include the party proportional component of hybrid systems such as New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional system, and Japan's Supplementary Member system - have no provision for transfer of votes that are surplus to or do not contribute to a quota.


They are not essentially based on the vital principle of direct election of individual candidates, even though those candidates might be incidentally classified in some mutually agreed grouping,

and are systems in which voters are either not able (closed party lists), or are partly or wholly able (open party lists), to cast their votes for individual candidates,

but only to contribute to a possible re-arrangement of their order in a list, and not to have their vote, or various parts of its value, transferred to another candidate, either in their most preferred list, or another list.


This grouping might be "proportional" but - because voters do not fully control their representation - its claim to being a system of "representation" is very much weaker than that of PR-STV.


The Proportional Representation Society of Australia advocates using Single Transferable Vote PR systems, which is the broad basis of the system that Victoria's Local Government Act 1989 prescribes for elections in multi-councillor electoral districts. It opposes the use of party list systems, or even quasi party list systems, such as those now used for the City of Melbourne and for NSW local government, which employ the above-the-line and below-the-line device imposed on the Senate electoral system until 2016. The PRSA seeks to have direct election of all councillors prescribed, without any Group Voting Tickets or other party-based device, as applies for all Tasmanian and South Australian local government elections.

 

Party list systems were originally implemented when the South Australian Legislative Council and the A.C.T. Legislative Assembly first used PR, but in both cases public opinion rejected them and their inescapable character of placing the real power of deciding the people to be elected in the hands of political parties, which alone decide who will be on the lists, and the order they will appear on them, so they were replaced by PR-STV (quota-preferential) systems [that do not have the group ticket voting option].


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