So, the Australians can do coalitions too, and you never know, theirs might be a genuine meeting of minds, not simply an umbrella for the shock doctrine one side has been planning all along… but to get us into the election spirit, and bearing in mind they have a quite sane version of PR there, we all need to know the true definition of the donkey vote.
A donkey voter is someone who votes for candidates based solely upon the order they are listed on the ballot paper.
In Australia, where all federal and state and territory electoral systems combine compulsory turnout with some form of preferential voting, a donkey vote refers to the practice of numbering the candidates’ boxes sequentially from top to bottom of the ballot-paper, rather than taking the time to number the candidates in the voter’s own thought-out order of preference. However, now that most States use a system of optional preferential voting, where voters may add as many preference votes as they wish after voting for their preferred candidate, the term mainly applies to Federal elections where, for a vote to be valid, the voter must enter a preferential vote for each candidate.
There are different versions of the phenomenon applicable in the Australian House of Representatives, Australian Senate and in the Australian jurisdictions that use the Hare-Clark system. Donkey votes are typically cast by uninterested voters, protesting voters or voters ignorant about the voting system. The lack of a None of the Above option in Australian elections also contributes to the presence of donkey votes. As voting is compulsory in Australia, “donkey votes” are an important measure of protest or apathy. The number of voters who protest at voting by spoiling their ballot or submitting a blank ballot is unknown, as these votes are tallied along with informal votes.
Some estimate that “donkey votes” can comprise up to 2% of the total.[citation needed] It is said that parties used to deliberately select candidates with a high alphabetical ranking.[citation needed] In 1984 voting reforms were introduced to lessen this effect, including listing names in a random order.
So now we know - if we get AV, we need randomisation or the donkeys will get in (again).
Happy Sunday. Me… I’ve just finished flooding the small aquarium next to my desk. delightful. Plants are all pearling away beautifully (for those who don’t spend their lives on UKaps, that means they’re producing oxygen at a nice rate) Now all I need to do is get some snails, some cherry shrimp and some fish for both tanks… once the water chemistry is stable.
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Gods, I do hope the Liberals (if ever there was a misnomer, it’s right there!) don’t win. If Tony Abbott is elected PM, I suppose we can all kiss goodbye to our rights to abortion, to be gay or to be a religion other than Christian. When asked what he’d think if his daughter would one day turn out to be homosexual, he answered, “I don’t answer hypothetical questions”. He’s said he is against immigration, but for Australians having large families (which is fabulous seeing as we have huge amounts of desert and not much fresh water and arable land). He’s said women should hold onto their virginity until married. Well done, donkey voters, for voting number 1 for the Liberals (as they were first on the ballot paper, with Labour at the bottom). Hmm, coincidence? A video to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVt4-BLFBJU&feature=related
keep us posted… difficult to know what’s really happening when all we get is the media’s sanitised spin…
Well, it’s a hung parliament, and probably will be for a while. It’s up to the independents to decide who they’re backing. But anyway, I’m not very educated in the ways of politics, I just know what my views are (left of centre), and my bf (“extreme centre” lol) tries to tell me how it works, but I go off to fairyland haha. But yeah, I don’t think Australians realise how good they’ve actually got it (I was born here, but I grew up in working class Britain where my family’s from). There isn’t as much class divide here. They change government based on one little thing they decide to whinge about which often has nothing to do with their lives. But I think it’s scary how many people are seemingly religious here, and I never knew. I’ll just keep my mouth shut then :/ Anyway, one day I’ll be back, in my little cottage in Wales, or, if my bf has his way, Sweden. Either way, good times.