Australian Electoral System: How Elections Work Down Under

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Pete: Hi and welcome to this episode of the Pete George

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Experience where we go into part two of how the Australian

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political system works. And today's episode is all about how

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Australia runs its elections Very much similar to the British

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, I think. And it's all conducted by an independent body

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called the Australian Electoral Commission. So in Australia, to

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win power in the House of Representatives, which is the

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lower house that makes all the decisions and comes up with the

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good and bad ideas, as I mentioned in the previous

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episode, there's 151 seats and to form government you need half

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plus one, so that's 76 in total. So how is all of this conducted?

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Well, every three years, the sitting party or parties go and

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have parliament dissolved and call an election, and it's

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normally six weeks out before the date. And our elections are

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always held on a Saturday and you can vote in three manners.

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So that's vote on the day, do a prior vote leading up to the

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election, so you can go and vote at a different location if you

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have a valid reason. And three is postal and absentee. So

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absentee is where you're not going to be in the country, so

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you can do that. Prior to leaving is where you're not

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going to be in the country so you can do that prior to leaving

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, and postal is where you're going to be interstate and you

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post it back in and then they're counted. So there's a lot of

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misconceptions about our elections, how they can be

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rigged and everything. Now there is only in my experience and I

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have worked on an election there is only one flaw that is in our

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system. Compared to other places around the world, and from what

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I've seen, learnt and understood , america is a shocker for it.

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So who can vote? Any Australian citizen over the age of 18. So

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you must be 18 or older and it is compulsory, and if you do not

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vote you can be fined. So, um, that's the the first thing that

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changes us from that wonderful, wacky, um strange place called

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america, where it is compulsory. Here it's a on a given day. If

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you and, as I said earlier, if you have a valid reason, you can

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vote prior to, and that's there for people that work, weekends

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and and travel and things like that. So it's a good system and

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more and more people are doing the pre-poll voting. So what

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happens on the actual day? Well, you go to a polling booth and

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they're normally at a state school or high school anywhere

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in the given areas of your electorate and then from there

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you mark your name off and then if there's a Senate, which is

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the upper house, if they're both doing a part. Vote for the

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Senate, then you'll receive two papers. Vote for the Senate then

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you'll receive two papers. You mark them, one to however many

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is on the sheet, because it's not first across the post.

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Here in Australia it's what's called a preferential system,

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where you mark the ballot paper, as I said, from one to how many

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is on the sheet. So it's in order of your preference. And

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this is where it all gets a little bit dodgy and hard for a

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lot of people to understand. So what do we mean by your

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preference? So say, for instance , you wanted to vote Liberal but

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not have Labor get many votes and vice versa. You would select

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whichever party you prefer and then you would put the party

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that you least prefer as the higher number. So the trick is

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in this system is to get 50% or higher. So what we call the

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first preference is counting, and I'll get into a little bit

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more detail about counting. To shut a few people up is that

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they'll do the first round of counting, um, and then they work

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out who's had the most votes, who's had the second most, and

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then from there on they take say , for instance, there was four

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whoever came fourth. They would grab their ballot papers and

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count again and then start distributing their preferences

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to the count and if that gets the party with the highest votes

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over the 50, well, that's the winner. If not, then they go to

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the next number, so on and so on until they get that 50. So there

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is a coalition here in Australia it's called the Liberal National

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Party, and there is a soft what I call a soft coalition between

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Labor and the Greens. At the moment the Labor Party is in

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power and they do hold majority, and the worst case scenario is

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that you end up with a hung parliament and that's a topic

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for a different talk. So what happens on the day and

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voting starts at eight, finishes at six and then from six o'clock

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in that particular state, the people that worked on the

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polling booths for the Australian electoral commission

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they start counting the votes at that booth and there's different

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locations also for the pre-poll, postal and absentee votes. And I

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can tell you from experience there is no way the system can

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be cheated in this part of the process with the counting, there

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are people called scrutineers who represent the different

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parties. They oversee and if they think that that's a valid

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vote then they'll dispute it. And then you get the head of

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your polling booth or whomever to check it and they have the

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final say. So if that person says no, it's not. The funny

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thing is that it can be a discrepancy of a number. So if

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you don't clearly number them and if they can't clearly

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determine the numbers, that becomes invalid. If you only put

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one number and that's an invalid vote.

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But that's for federally. In some states and some cancel

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elections it's first past the post, so you don't have to do

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the preferential voting. So that's pretty much how we do it

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here and in summary, summary, it is compulsory. It is done on one

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day, on a weekend, and you must get 76, a half plus one to win

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federally. Very similar from state to state, and there's not

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many states now that do have first across the post in council

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elections. I know in Queensland that is the case where you can

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just mark one. But it's a fair system and the

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only other thing I'll say about our electoral process. So,

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people, you'll see our Prime Minister and Deputy Prime

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Ministers. The people of Australia don't vote for them.

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The people in their electorate vote for them and it's the

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political parties that elect their leaders, not the people of

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Australia that elect the leaders . So that's how it all works.

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Thank you for listening to episode two of this series. The

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next one, hopefully, will be a little bit of nitty gritty and a

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look at Queensland, because that's where I'm from. Then

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we'll break that down and have a little bit look at the history

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of Queensland politics and make sure of two things One, that you

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subscribe to the show. Push the little subscribe button on your

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