Tom Stoppard’s pearl of wisdom: “”Democracy does not lie in the voting, but in the counting,” said Tom Stoppard.
A simple system does not mean a fair system. Similarly a system that is difficult to understand is not necessarily unfair or should be done away with.
The Hare-Clark system is complex and fair _ if you define fair as providing seats in reasonable proportion to votes and at the same time giving some geographical representation.
It is important in Hare-Clark to number preferences right through the ballot paper so every candidate has a number against him or her. This is because preferences flow not only from excluded minor-party candidates but also from excluded major-party candidates, given each major party puts up five candidates for five seats and cannot possibly win all of them.
The ACT has been divided into three electorates: Ginninderra, based on Belconnen, with five seats; Brindabella, based on Tuggeranong, also with five seats and Molonglo, based in the centre, with seven seats.
In the five-seat electorates a candidate needs one sixth of the vote plus one to get elected. This is because if five people got this, the most a remaining candidate could get would be one sixth of the vote minus five votes, thereby guaranteeing they are the top five.
So practically one sixth or 16.6 per cent is enough to get elected. In Molonglo it is one-eighth or 12.5 per cent.
It means a solid independent or minor-party candidate has a chance, but it does not allow a range of very small minors and independents.
The Hare-Clark system is also preferential. This means that if a candidate gets more than a quota, the balance is distributed according to preferences marked by the voter. Or if a candidate gets only a few votes, he or she is excluded and the preferences marked by the voter are counted.
Incidentally, parties cannot determine preferences. Parties cannot lodge pre-determined preferences with the electoral commission and parties do not determine the order of their candidates on the ballot paper.
The order is determined by what is called Robson rotation.
Robson rotation is best explained by an example. Say the Labor Party pre-selects five candidates in Ginninderra in the following order: Berry, McRae, Stanhope, Sant, and Nicholls. The ballot papers, however, are printed in batches. One fifth of papers will have Berry at the top of the Labor list; one fifth will have McRae; one fifth Stanhope and so on.
So I might go to vote tomorrow and my ballot paper will have the Labor order as: Stanhope, Sant, Nicholls, Berry, McRae. The next person in the queue gets a ballot paper with the Labor candidates’ order as: McRae, Stanhope, Sant, Nicholls, Berry. And the next voter gets something else again.
It means, therefore, that voters have to select which candidates they want.
Further, there is no requirement for voters to stay within one party’s box. A voter can vote, say, 1 McRae and then go over to the Liberal column and mark 2 Stefaniak and then 3 for an independent and then back to the Labor column.
This election, the major parties have not issued candidate lists in preferred order, though the Labor Party has made great attempts to give preferences to sitting candidates with publicity and funds.
A sitting member can be thrown out in favour of someone from the same party, so voters can still give first preference to the party of their choice but can relegate an especially detested candidate of that party by not giving a preference to him or her or giving a preference after going to other parties or independents.
The counting of the vote is complex, but fair. If you struggle through this explanation following the table, you will get the gist of it.
The table gives an example of a three-seat system (it would take too much space to do a five seat example but the principle is the same).
All first preferences are counted and in doing so the total number of formal votes is calculated. In this case 24,000. In a three-seat electorate the quota is one fourth plus one, or 6001. (In a five-seat electorate the quota would be one sixth plus one or 4001.)
In our example, Red has 10000 votes, which is 3999 over the quota. That surplus of votes is transferred according to the next voter preference, but you cannot randomly select 3999 ballot papers and count the preferences. Instead all the preferences are counted and transferred at a reduced transfer value to take account of the fact that 6001 votes have already been used to elect the Red candidate.
The formula is the number of votes obtained minus the quota, divided by the number of ballot papers. In this case 10,000 minus 6001 divided by 10,000. This comes to 0.3999. So all the ballot papers received by Red are distributed to the next candidate according to the next preference chosen by the voter as the new transfer value of 0.3999.
In the table, the 10,000 second preferences from Red go 6000 to Blue and 4000 to Grey. These get added to Blue and Grey totals after they have been multiplied by 0.3999 and appear in the second line of the right-hand side of the table as 2399 and 1599.
After the distribution of the preferences of each candidate who exceeded the quota all the remaining candidate totals are checked to see if any candidate has a quota. If not, the lowest candidate is excluded and his or her preferences are distributed at full value. (In the table Black at line 4 on the right.)
If someone gets a quota down the track on preferences, that candidate’s surplus is distributed by using only the preferences that took him over the quota, with an appropriate discount.
In our example, the 1500 votes from Grey took Blue over the line (at line six in the right-hand table). Blue’s original 4899 sit tight and on Grey’s exclusion the 1500 are distributed at Count 6 on the left-hand side. The discount rate is 6399 (at line seven on the right-hand table) minus the quota 6001 _ this equals 398 (at the second last line of the right-hand table) divided by the number of ballots being distributed which is 1500. This comes to 0.2653. This is multiplied by the preferences at Count 6 on the left hand side giving 331 for Purple and 66 for Green which appear on the second-last line on the right-hand side. It causes Purple to go over the quota and get the last seat.
It’s complex but the voters’ wishes are transcribed in detail.