fordy said:
That's a big problem here. People will throw away an average government only to find that they voted in a worse government. There areally needs to be some kind of public information session as to what is decreed as tolerable governance. Preference votes work in that way because that's what they're designed to do. I actually prefer this way to the Americas, where third party candidates don't stand a chance, because of the fear of "throwing your vote away" by voting for them. Of course, preferential leads to buddy-buddy backdoor deals where parties lobby each other for higher rankings in their "how to vote" cards. Once again, if people voted in the preferentials in the way that their opinions deictated, it would be a lot better (funny enough the idiot liberals put the Greens ahead of Labor in the seat of Melbourne, and they won through preferences. Liberal really should have considered that the Greens are more distant to them than Labor in a political ideology standpoint, and not thought "well they don't stand a chance of winning, so let's put them ahead of Labor in our how to vote cards") |
You are right about public information sessions because what happens is you get those annoying people at the poll booths that give you HOW to vote cards, but obviously those are done in a way that the preferences will favour that person.
People need to be taught that if you actually spend time putting in the 1 to 6 or whatever it is in your area, instead of voting on the top row the quick way (because you want to save 1minute of your life) then the preference go where you want them not the default party.