(no subject)

[pedanther]

Tomorrow is the Australian federal election. Hurrah. *waves tiny flag unenthusiastically*

The House of Reps ballot for my electorate is a nice easy one: only six candidates, and three of them are from parties I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

The Senate ballot, as usual, is a whole different kettle of fish. This time out, the Senate ballot for WA has twenty-eight party groups on it, plus independents/ungrouped candidates, and most of them are minor parties that you never hear about except around senate election time.

At a time like this, it really helps to have a tool that lets you play around with the ballot and rearrange it how you like, and then print out your own personalised how-to-vote card so you don't get confused when confronted with the enormous ballot paper. Cluey Voter has one that does the job pretty well. (It's not as convenient as I remember Below the Line being, but that's not a fair comparison since Below the Line is sitting this one out due to lack of time on the part of the guy who maintains it. In any case, it's a whole lot better than trying to number the boxes off the top of one's head on the day.)

But how to know which order to put the parties in? What you need is a snarky but informative summary with a title like "Who are these people?". This one's for the Queensland ballot, but it covers nearly all the parties that are on the WA ballot.

(To that I would add that, out of the independents, Kai Jones might be worth a look if you have a similar political stance to me, though of course it's highly unlikely he'll actually get in.)

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Good luck!

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Still at least this time in senate we can stop at 12 below the line

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Do you have proportional representation then, to inspire so many little groups to stand? We have a few other chancers at election time, but mostly all they do is split the vote between liberals, so the right wing get in more and more. We have a lousy voting system here, which tends to prevent any more than two parties with much of a chance at all.

[pedanther]

Proportional representation is part of the answer, yes. I'll let this bloke explain it.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Interesting. PR is by no means a perfect system, clearly - I do understand the concerns of complicated ballots and splintering. But blimey, anything's got to be better than what we've got in the UK! I see that you abandoned FPTP in 1919. Would that Britain was that progressive...