Election problems

[emfrat]

Tomliner - Back in the 1970s, there was a movement encouraging people to do just as you suggest. That made their votes 'informal' and they would not be counted. At that time, to win an election you needed 'a simple majority of the formal vote', so in theory if everyone voted informal, no candidate could be elected. The pollies reacted by dropping the word 'formal' from the winning requirement.

Mike - A couple of years ago I asked the Electoral Reform Commission to let us put a zero against any candidate on the ballot paper, to mean that candidate was not wanted in any circumstance, and that each zero would cancel out one primary vote for that candidate. Preferential voting does not give me the right to say NO, so if there happens to be someone I want elected, I cannot vote for them unless I also express some degree of support for the other candidates, most of whom I don't want on the same planet, never mind sitting in the parliament. The ERC replied that my system would be "unfair to the candidates"...makes me wonder whose side the ERC is on

MikeW

[Airspeed]

Hi MikeW,
I dislike the preference system, too. I object to letting any part of my vote going to people I don't select, but unless you "number all the squares from 1 to x", you are informal. What about being fair to the voter?
The few TV political ads I've seen are so negative, it makes me angry.
Parts of the country get devastated by floods, whilst others suffer almost perpetual drought. A bit of forward thinking, like a water pipeline linking the extremes could change the whole future of this land. Sure it would cost big dollars, but our roads and railways were built at no small cost, and when we needed a fast north-south route up the Centre during WWII, they did it.