The result of the ACT election will not be known until at least a week after the vote _ due to the nature of ACT electoral law and the nature of the electorate.The result in the final seat in each electorate is expected to be known on the night of Saturday, February 25, or on March 3 by the latest.
On election night _ February 18 _ the ACT Electoral Commission will count only first-preferences. But more than 95 per cent of them will be counted on the night, unlike Federal elections where only 85 per cent are counted.
This is because the bulk of out-of-area voting in the ACT will be recorded as ordinary votes. People can cast an ordinary vote at a polling booth in any of the three electorates, irrespective of which electorate they are enrolled in. In Federal elections, these are out of area votes and because of verification procedures cannot be counted on the night.
The ACT has different procedures for postal votes which means most postal and pre-poll votes can be counted on the night, leaving only a few late postal to be counted in the week after the poll, before preferences are distributed on Saturday February 25.
Unlike the Federal election, however, the electoral commission will not be doing an indicative distribution of preferences. At the last Federal election this speeded up the overall “”who won it” result on the night, enabling leaders to claim victory or concede the result.
In the ACT it means that the result on election night is very likely to be inconclusive _ especially on the issue of whether we have a majority or minority government. This is because the result will come down to the last few seats, unlike the usual Federal election.
On the night we might reasonably expect say two Labor quotas in Ginninderra and Brindabella and three in Molonglo to be known. Depending on how well the Liberals poll, one or two quotas in each of Ginninderra and Brindabella will be known and two or three in Molonglo.
If Michael Moore gets more than half a quota in Molonglo he could reasonably claim a seat on the night.
That would leave at least three and as many as five unclaimed seats on the night with no great certainty on how they will fall until the start of preference counting the following Saturday. However, candidates’ scrutineers may give some earlier indication.
Three critical factors will determine the spoils in the last seats: the proportion of people who only put the minimum number of preferences on the ballot paper _ five in Ginninderra and Brindabella or seven in Molonglo; the proportion of voters who jump back and forward across the ballot paper, for example by giving a Labor candidate first preference, Liberal second independent third and back to Labor for fourth and fifth (cross-voting); and the proportion of voters who vote for only the minimum number of preferences (five in Ginninderra and Brindabella and seven in Molonglo) leaving the remaining squares blank.
The ballot paper says in large print you must mark one to five in the small electorates or one to seven in Molonglo and in small print says you may number more squares if you wish. Also the Labor how-to-vote-card suggests only numbering to five or seven. So it is likely many people will do this.
If Labor people follow the instruction, it may tend to help the Liberals over Independents because if Labor people were advised to vote the whole ticket they would presumably put Liberals last.
Technically you need only mark one square, but it is mostly a wasted vote. Even when preferences are distributed, the count can still be fairly slow in determining the last seat.
In Tasmania, for example, it has taken up to 600 counts (correct) to determine all the seats. But bear in mind the number of ballot papers to be counted each time whittles away fairly quickly as ballots get spent.
The complexity of the count happens because under Hare-Clark, it is not simply a case of excluding the bottom (ital) unelected (end ital) candidate and distributing preferences, as in the Federal system. With multi-member electorates the surplus of (ital) elected (end ital) candidates who get more than one quota have to be distributed.
For example, say Ginninderra has 60,000 votes, the quota to get elected is 10,000. Say Wayne Berry gets 15,000 votes. 10,000 of them go to elect him and the remaining 5,000 would go according to how his voters marked their preferences, presumably nearly all Labor.
The distribution is not done by grabbing at random 5,000 ballot papers and distributing the second preferences. Rather it is done by distributing all the second preferences, but at a discounted value to account for the fact that a proportion of that vote has already been used to elect Berry.
That discount, or transfer value is calculated as follows: the number of Berry’s first preferences minus the quota divided by the quota. In this case, 15,000 minus 10,0000 divided by 10,000. That is one half or 50 per cent.
So each of Berry’s preferences would be worth a third of a vote when transferred to the next candidate.
This transfer process goes on from elected candidates until no new candidate gets a quota. Then the candidate with the least votes is excluded and preferences are transferred at full value. This process is continued until all seats are filled.
Despite the complexity of the system, it is fairly clear, however, that the count will be done well under the time for the first election’s count in 1989 _ six weeks. This is the first poll under ACT law and ACT administration so there will be a point to make. Moreover, in earlier elections the Australian Electoral Commission (which conducted the election) had warned the count would be slow, and it was.
Labor issued its first how-to-vote cards at pre-polling yesterday. Surprisingly the Libs weren’t there.
The card orders candidates by advising voters to: “”Put a 1 in the box beside Rosemary Follett. Put a 2 in the box besides Terry Connolly. Put a 3 in the box besides David Lamont.” And so on. It is asking voters to find each candidate in the shuffled column and mark in the number.
It is very likely many people will make errors _ especially those unfamiliar with Hare-Clark. Those familiar with Hare-Clark will make up their own minds. And, of course, members of the Labor Party will vote according to their factional loyalty. They will be the first to ignore the Labor ticket.
Tasmanian experience suggests that the ticket causes more trouble than it is worth. The Labor Party there abandoned it.
It may seem that the count is complicated, but necessarily so. Democracy is as much in the counting of the votes as in the casting of them. Just because the counting is not well understood does not mean it is unfair. To the contrary, simpler systems tend to be less fair.