From: suter@fawlty9.eng.monash.edu.au (Mr D. Suter)
Subject: Re: Clever Voting
Keywords: federal elections
Organization: Monash University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:09:15 GMT

In article <1i8dr8INN4eq@werple.apana.org.au> duncan@werple.apana.org.au (Duncan Robertson) writes:
>PLEASE NOTE: I am posting this text file for a friend who wanted it posted.
>The views expressed are his, not mine. I'll pass on any comments and flames
>to the author. Hopefully soon he will have an account and will be able to
>respond directly.
>
>============================================================================
>
>  HOW TO VOTE CLEVERLY  (in AUSTRALIA, i.e. FEDERAL ELECTION)
>
>YOU CANNOT GUARANTEE that the person you vote for WILL get your vote, but you
>CAN GUARANTEE THAT the people you vote against WONT GET YOUR VOTE !!!
>
>This works because of an aspect of the Australian Voting System which doesn't
>get much publicity (for historical reasons, lets say).
>
>Normally when you vote, you are lead to believe that you have to number ALL
>the boxes on the voting slip.  That way your vote goes through each candidate
>in order of numbering, and the one that finally collects enough votes get in.
>
>The problem with that is that even, for example, if you hate the Liberal Party's 
>GUTS, it is still possible for YOUR VOTE TO GO TO THEM !!!.
>
>
>However, there is a solution.  Even though all how-to-vote cards (all I've seen
>, anyway) have "number all the boxes" on them, this is NOT CORRECT.
>
>YOU DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT HAVE TO NUMBER ALL THE BOXES !!!.
>
>It is COMPLETELY LEGAL to ONLY NUMBER THE BOXES AS FAR AS YOU WANT.
>
..... everything you say is technically correct but in practice your
advice will make no difference. If the distribution of votes gets
to the stage where any party that you remotely like has been eliminated then
what difference does it make if your "vote" gets redistributed to those
you hate? They will win anyway. 
I have nothing against your advice but it seems overly enthusiastic
and seems to promise more than it can deliver.
>
>Please take note of this post and vote cleverly in the next election.  Also
>I beg any of you WITH ACCESS TO A PRINTER to PRINT OUT and PHOTOCOPY this post
>and hand it around !!!
...........Oh surely not everyone! Not a member of any green organization 
are you?
>
>A small note on recent disasters...(and do you want a GST AS WELL ?!?!?)...
>In the last Victorian state election people obviously decided that there were 
>only two parties on offer.  NOT ONE SINGLE INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE GOT IN!
>And it is worth thinking about two things:
>i) ONE, there was a HUGE informal vote (about 1/3 of the state)
>ii)TWO, almost everyone would have voted in all boxes on the voting slip,
>   and thereby the Liberals would have collected a lot of votes BY DEFAULT.
>   Some people seem to think this is democracy...I don't know why!
Well in my seat my vote went (technically at least but by that stage
there really was no point in going through the actual motions of redistribution)
to the Labor party candidate even though I DEFINITELY wanted to put a stop to 
their mortgaging of all our present and future assets. 
(Would those who didn't put Labor last please donate their share of
the state debt to me now :-))
It still is democracy.

I doubt you actually understand the distribution process. In effect, all
your advice will do (if anything) is ensure that IF you "hate" more
than one party, then those parties are treated equally (you will
not number them). Other than that, it doesn't matter whether you
number them (which is advisable if you have "degrees of hate")
or not.
d.s.
-- 
David Suter - Dept. of Electrical and
Computer Systems Engineering, Monash University,
Clayton, Vic. 3168, Australia
ph 565 5682 Fax 565 3454