What’s wrong with single-member electorates - Part 2

Party boxes were introduced in the 1983 overhaul of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, ostensibly as a short-cut way of recording a formal vote, and have spread to other jurisdictions. The alternative of having to mark nearly all the squares individually otherwise continues to be an unfair imposition on voters. The result has been a concentration of power in the hands of those making preference deals straight after nominations close, and a proliferation of party groups in New South Wales and South Australian Legislative Council elections where state-wide seats can be won with a relatively small proportion of the votes.

Voters marking party boxes usually have no idea what is to be made of their indicated support. When those influential within Grey Power and the Citizens’ Electoral Councils Group succeeded in blackballing Liberal Chris Puplick in NSW in 1990, most of their groups’ supporters would have been greatly surprised if they ever discovered that their votes made the difference between two or three Labor Senators being elected. At the Western Australian Legislative Council elections of 2001, One Nation supporters marking the party box in two non-metropolitan regions unwittingly handed the balance of power to the Greens, who were placed before the Liberals on those registered how-to-vote tickets.

A straightforward way of avoiding these induced problems would have been to make it easy for all voters to record a formal vote. For instance, in the Australian Capital Territory's Hare-Clark system where the absence of party boxes has been entrenched, voters are encouraged to mark at least as many preferences as there are vacancies, but do not lose their vote if they fail to do so.

Where does that leave us?

If we really want to clean up the image of politics, first we should strive for a system where there are no safe seats at all as that will force anyone with an intention of being in politics for some time to pay attention to what’s important for constituents.

Having an effective vote, one that contributes to the election of one or more candidates, has the Parliament looking much more like what the people indicate they want in each region. It also sparks more interest in politics because individual outcomes aren’t a foregone conclusion.

Once you have seven or nine vacancies in an electorate (12.5 per cent and 10 per cent respectively is enough to secure election), a shift of even 2 or 3 per cent in support is quite likely to change representation. No area can be taken for granted or written off as a lost cause, and there are incentives to build further support to win more seats.

Geographical considerations may point to the inclusion of five-member electorates even though over 16 per cent of the vote could be wasted and major parties might feel confident of winning two seats in most circumstances. While much larger numbers of vacancies would reduce vote wastage, ballot-papers can become unwieldy if a hundred or more candidates nominate.

The best model available is the Hare-Clark system in use in Tasmania since 1909, and adopted at plebiscite and then entrenched in the Australian Capital Territory during the 1990s.

Safe seats have been eliminated through the introduction of Robson Rotation. Names are rotated within party columns on ballot-papers so that the vote for the party gets shared out and those with greatest explicit voter support get elected. This has forced candidates to do much more doorknocking and to make themselves more accessible to voters over a period of time. Being able to generate some publicity while in the Assembly or during the campaign period has been shown to be no guarantee of continued success.

A further highlight leading to more choice for voters on election day is the use of count-back of the votes for a vacating candidate to determine the replacement. This maintains voter influence over the composition of the Parliament at all times without risking compromising proportional representation through by-elections (as occurs in Eire): it will work satisfactorily without delay in all circumstances, unlike the Senate approach of party nomination where possible, under which as many as one in five incumbents has not been elected by the people.