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by goatforce5
5525 days ago
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The link says most people just go along party lines. Even though in many electorates your vote will end up going to Liberal or Labor, the path it takes to get there is super important. That's kinda the point. If you think the environment is a really important issue, go vote Green because typically they'll have worked out a deal with one of majors to get some of their issues addressed. You like smoking pot and there's a nutty local candidate who'll never be voted in in a million years and who none of the major parties will have bothered to do deals with? He's still worth a vote so that once the election is over the other candidates can see there's some people who consider it an important issue. The entire beauty of preferential voting is it gives some voice to the other candidates in shaping policies, regardless of who gets in. |
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Personally my strategy is to always vote number 1 for someone I'm pretty sure is going to get less than 4% of the vote. Why? Electoral funding rules. The government gives the parties money for their election campaigns based on how many votes they get. Except for folks who get less than 4% of the vote -- they get nothing. So if you vote 1 for a major party you're voting for taxpayer money to be given to political parties (yeech) but if you vote for some minor <4% nutjob then no money gets given on your behalf (hooray!)
Or so I've heard. I've never actually verified that this is true.
I'm also one of the few people who actually fills out every box below the line on the upper-house ballot sheets. A few years ago I think there were two hundred and something candidates, so I just wound up numbering consecutively in pretty spirals and so forth. Then I folded my ballot paper into a hat and wore it across the room to the box. They glared at me.