2006 Victorian State Election and Matters Related Thereto

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

2006 Victorian State Election and Matters Related Thereto PARLIAMENT PARLIAMENT ELECTORAL MATTERS COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE CONDUCT OF THE 2006 OF VICTORIA VICTORIAN STATE ELECTION JUNE 2008 1st REPORT TO PARLIAMENT Inquiry into the conduct of the 2006 Victorian state election and matters related thereto Report to Parliament Electoral Matters Committee June 2008 ORDERED TO BE PRINTED Victorian Government Printer 2008 Parliamentary Paper No. 117 Session 2006-2008 Parliament of Victoria Electoral Matters Committee Inquiry into the conduct of the 2006 Victorian state election and matters related thereto ISBN – 978-0-9805370-0-0 ISBN – 978-0-9805370-1-7 Electronic Maps and ballot paper images courtesy of the Victorian Electoral Commission. Photos of vestibule and Parliament House reproduced with the permission of the Victorian Parliamentary Library. Table of Contents Committee Members ........................................................................................... xi Electoral Matters Committee ............................................................................ xiii Terms of Reference ............................................................................................ xv Acknowledgements.......................................................................................... xvii Chair’s Foreword ............................................................................................... xix List of Recommendations................................................................................. xxi List of Tables and Figures ............................................................................. xxvii Abbreviations................................................................................................... xxix Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................... 1 Responsibilities of the EMC ................................................................................ 1 A standard for comparison: Similar Commonwealth and state inquiries........ 2 Significance of the 2006 Victorian state election............................................... 2 Fixed election day and parliamentary terms ........................................................... 3 Changes to the Legislative Council......................................................................... 3 Overview of the 2006 Victorian state election.................................................... 4 Election timetable ................................................................................................... 4 Voter turnout........................................................................................................... 4 Election result ......................................................................................................... 4 Election expenditure ............................................................................................... 5 Positive feedback ................................................................................................... 5 Overview of the Albert Park District and Williamstown District by-elections . 6 By-elections timetable............................................................................................. 6 Voter turnout........................................................................................................... 7 By-elections results................................................................................................. 7 By-elections expenditure ........................................................................................ 7 Electoral landscape.............................................................................................. 7 Government legislation........................................................................................... 7 Stakeholders........................................................................................................... 8 Victorian Electoral Commission...................................................................... 8 Political parties and candidates...................................................................... 9 Electors ........................................................................................................ 10 Media, researchers and psephologists......................................................... 10 Conduct of inquiry.............................................................................................. 11 Inquiry process............................................................................................. 11 Feedback on inquiry..................................................................................... 12 Report outline ..................................................................................................... 13 iii Chapter Two: Victorian Electoral Commission ..............................15 The role of the VEC............................................................................................. 15 VEC’s relationship with the EMC .......................................................................... 15 Duplication of electoral administration .................................................................. 15 Review of the VEC’s operations............................................................................ 17 Personnel ............................................................................................................ 18 Staff recruitment.................................................................................................... 18 Staff retention ....................................................................................................... 19 Staff training.......................................................................................................... 20 Staff management of electoral districts................................................................. 22 Indigenous staff..................................................................................................... 22 Multilingual staff .................................................................................................... 23 Staff with a disability ............................................................................................. 25 Chapter Three: Enrolment and engagement – Part A.....................27 Overview of communication strategies ............................................................ 27 2006 Victorian state election................................................................................. 27 Albert Park District and Williamstown District by-elections ................................... 30 Concerns associated with the 2010 Victorian state election ................................. 30 Overview of enrolment trends and issues........................................................ 31 New enrolment initiatives ...................................................................................... 31 2006 Victorian state election................................................................................. 31 Albert Park District and Williamstown District by-elections ................................... 31 Enrolment participation rate .................................................................................. 31 Concerns associated with enrolment of voters for federal elections ..................... 32 Electoral roll ........................................................................................................ 34 Maintaining an accurate electoral roll.................................................................... 34 Close of roll: Victorian state elections ................................................................... 35 Public access to the electoral roll.......................................................................... 36 Engaging communities ...................................................................................... 37 Young persons...................................................................................................... 38 Definition ...................................................................................................... 38 Demographic information ............................................................................. 39 Enrolment ..................................................................................................... 39 Electoral education....................................................................................... 41 Information in accessible formats ................................................................. 43 Optional voting for 16 and 17 year olds........................................................ 46 Older persons ....................................................................................................... 49 Definition ...................................................................................................... 49 Demographic information ............................................................................. 49 Utilisation of community service providers.................................................... 50 Information in accessible formats ................................................................. 50 Exemption of voters...................................................................................... 51 iv Persons with poor literacy skills............................................................................ 52 Definition .....................................................................................................
Recommended publications
  • On the Distortion of Voting with Multiple Representative Candidates∗
    The Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-18) On the Distortion of Voting with Multiple Representative Candidates∗ Yu Cheng Shaddin Dughmi David Kempe Duke University University of Southern California University of Southern California Abstract voters and the chosen candidate in a suitable metric space (Anshelevich 2016; Anshelevich, Bhardwaj, and Postl 2015; We study positional voting rules when candidates and voters Anshelevich and Postl 2016; Goel, Krishnaswamy, and Mu- are embedded in a common metric space, and cardinal pref- erences are naturally given by distances in the metric space. nagala 2017). The underlying assumption is that the closer In a positional voting rule, each candidate receives a score a candidate is to a voter, the more similar their positions on from each ballot based on the ballot’s rank order; the candi- key questions are. Because proximity implies that the voter date with the highest total score wins the election. The cost would benefit from the candidate’s election, voters will rank of a candidate is his sum of distances to all voters, and the candidates by increasing distance, a model known as single- distortion of an election is the ratio between the cost of the peaked preferences (Black 1948; Downs 1957; Black 1958; elected candidate and the cost of the optimum candidate. We Moulin 1980; Merrill and Grofman 1999; Barbera,` Gul, consider the case when candidates are representative of the and Stacchetti 1993; Richards, Richards, and McKay 1998; population, in the sense that they are drawn i.i.d. from the Barbera` 2001). population of the voters, and analyze the expected distortion Even in the absence of strategic voting, voting systems of positional voting rules.
    [Show full text]
  • 2012 Legislative Assembly Election (PDF, 3.7MB)
    The Hon K Purick MLA Speaker Northern Territory Legislative Assembly Parliament House Darwin NT 0800 Madam Speaker In accordance with Section 313 of the Electoral Act, I am pleased to provide a report on the conduct of the 2012 Northern Territory Legislative Assembly General Elections. The Electoral Act requires this report to be tabled in the Legislative Assembly within three sittings days after its receipt. Additional copies have been provided for this purpose. Bill Shepheard Electoral Commissioner 24 April 2014 ELECTORAL COMMISSIONER’S FOREWORD The 2012 Legislative Assembly General Elections (LAGE) were the third general elections to be conducted under the NT Electoral Act 2004 (NTEA). The 2012 LAGE was also conducted under the substantially revised NTEA which had a significant impact on operational processes and planning arrangements. Set term elections were provided for in 2009, along with a one-day extension to the election timeframe. Further amendments with operational implications received assent in December 2011 and were in place for the August 2012 elections. A number of these changes were prescribed for both the local government and parliamentary electoral framework and, to some extent, brought the legislation into a more contemporary operating context and also aligned its features with those of other jurisdictions. The NTEC workload before the 2012 LAGE was particularly challenging. It was the second major electoral event conducted by the NTEC within the space of a few months. Local government general elections for five municipalities and ten shire councils were conducted on 24 March 2012, the first time their elections had all been held on the same day.
    [Show full text]
  • Consistent Approval-Based Multi-Winner Rules
    Consistent Approval-Based Multi-Winner Rules Martin Lackner Piotr Skowron TU Wien University of Warsaw Vienna, Austria Warsaw, Poland Abstract This paper is an axiomatic study of consistent approval-based multi-winner rules, i.e., voting rules that select a fixed-size group of candidates based on approval bal- lots. We introduce the class of counting rules, provide an axiomatic characterization of this class and, in particular, show that counting rules are consistent. Building upon this result, we axiomatically characterize three important consistent multi- winner rules: Proportional Approval Voting, Multi-Winner Approval Voting and the Approval Chamberlin–Courant rule. Our results demonstrate the variety of multi- winner rules and illustrate three different, orthogonal principles that multi-winner voting rules may represent: individual excellence, diversity, and proportionality. Keywords: voting, axiomatic characterizations, approval voting, multi-winner elections, dichotomous preferences, apportionment 1 Introduction In Arrow’s foundational book “Social Choice and Individual Values” [5], voting rules rank candidates according to their social merit and, if desired, this ranking can be used to select the best candidate(s). As these rules are concerned with “mutually exclusive” candidates, they can be seen as single-winner rules. In contrast, the goal of multi-winner rules is to select the best group of candidates of a given size; we call such a fixed-size set of candidates a committee. Multi-winner elections are of importance in a wide range of scenarios, which often fit in, but are not limited to, one of the following three categories [25, 29]. The first category contains multi-winner elections aiming for proportional representation.
    [Show full text]
  • Report on the Conduct of the 2007 Federal Election and Matters Related Thereto
    The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters June 2009 Canberra © Commonwealth of Australia 2009 ISBN 978-0-642-79156-6 (Printed version) ISBN 978-0-642-79157-3 (HTML version) Chair’s foreword The publication of this report into the conduct of the 2007 federal election marks 25 years since the implementation of major reforms to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 which were implemented by the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Act 1983 and came into effect for the 1984 federal election. These reforms included changes to redistribution processes, the implementation of public funding of election campaigns and the establishment of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). This report continues the tradition of examining and reporting on the conduct of federal elections and relevant legislation which has been carried out by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and its predecessor, the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. Federal elections in Australia are remarkably complex logistical events. The 2007 election was the largest electoral event undertaken in Australia’s history, with 13,646,539 electors on the electoral roll, to whom 13,364,359 sets of ballot papers were issued, with some 12,930,814 actually being counted in House of Representatives Elections. Australian citizens enjoy a fundamental right to vote which has its basis in sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution. It is evident, however, that at least 466,794 electors were unable to exercise the franchise correctly at the 2007 election, either because they were not on the electoral roll, or they were on the roll with incomplete or incorrect details.
    [Show full text]
  • General Conference, Universität Hamburg, 22 – 25 August 2018
    NEW OPEN POLITICAL ACCESS JOURNAL RESEARCH FOR 2018 ECPR General Conference, Universität Hamburg, 22 – 25 August 2018 EXCHANGE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Alexandra Segerberg, Stockholm University, Sweden Simona Guerra, University of Leicester, UK Published in partnership with ECPR, PRX is a gold open access journal seeking to advance research, innovation and debate PRX across the breadth of political science. NO ARTICLE PUBLISHING CHARGES THROUGHOUT 2018–2019 General Conference bit.ly/introducing-PRX 22 – 25 August 2018 General Conference Universität Hamburg, 22 – 25 August 2018 Contents Welcome from the local organisers ........................................................................................ 2 Mayor’s welcome ..................................................................................................................... 3 Welcome from the Academic Convenors ............................................................................ 4 The European Consortium for Political Research ................................................................... 5 ECPR governance ..................................................................................................................... 6 ECPR Council .............................................................................................................................. 6 Executive Committee ................................................................................................................ 7 ECPR staff attending .................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Electoral Institutions, Party Strategies, Candidate Attributes, and the Incumbency Advantage
    Electoral Institutions, Party Strategies, Candidate Attributes, and the Incumbency Advantage The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Llaudet, Elena. 2014. Electoral Institutions, Party Strategies, Candidate Attributes, and the Incumbency Advantage. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12274468 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Electoral Institutions, Party Strategies, Candidate Attributes, and the Incumbency Advantage A dissertation presented by Elena Llaudet to the Department of Government in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Political Science Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2014 ⃝c 2014 - Elena Llaudet All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Stephen Ansolabehere Elena Llaudet Electoral Institutions, Party Strategies, Candidate Attributes, and the Incumbency Advantage Abstract In developed democracies, incumbents are consistently found to have an electoral advantage over their challengers. The normative implications of this phenomenon depend on its sources. Despite a large existing literature, there is little consensus on what the sources are. In this three-paper dissertation, I find that both electoral institutions and the parties behind the incumbents appear to have a larger role than the literature has given them credit for, and that in the U.S. context, between 30 and 40 percent of the incumbents' advantage is driven by their \scaring off” serious opposition.
    [Show full text]
  • Perspective Chaos, but in Voting and Apportionments?
    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 96, pp. 10568–10571, September 1999 Perspective Chaos, but in voting and apportionments? Donald G. Saari* Department of Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-2730 Mathematical chaos and related concepts are used to explain and resolve issues ranging from voting paradoxes to the apportioning of congressional seats. Although the phrase ‘‘chaos in voting’’ may suggest the complex- A wins with the plurality vote (1, 0, 0, 0), B wins by voting ity of political interactions, here I indicate how ‘‘mathematical for two candidates, that is, with (1, 1, 0, 0), C wins by voting chaos’’ helps resolve perplexing theoretical issues identified as for three candidates, and D wins with the method proposed by early as 1770, when J. C. Borda (1) worried whether the way the Borda, now called the Borda Count (BC), where the weights French Academy of Sciences elected members caused inappro- are (3, 2, 1, 0). Namely, election outcomes can more accurately priate outcomes. The procedure used by the academy was the reflect the choice of a procedure rather than the voters’ widely used plurality system, where each voter votes for one preferences. This aberration raises the realistic worry that candidate. To illustrate the kind of difficulties that can arise in this inadvertently we may not select whom we really want. system, suppose 30 voters rank the alternatives A, B, C, and D as ‘‘Bad decisions’’ extend into, say, engineering, where one follows (where ‘‘՝’’ means ‘‘strictly preferred’’): way to decide among design (material, etc.) alternatives is to assign points to alternatives based on how they rank over Table 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Universidade Federal De Pernambuco Centro De Tecnologia E Geociências Departamento De Engenharia De Produção Programa De Pós-Graduação Em Engenharia De Produção
    UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE PERNAMBUCO CENTRO DE TECNOLOGIA E GEOCIÊNCIAS DEPARTAMENTO DE ENGENHARIA DE PRODUÇÃO PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM ENGENHARIA DE PRODUÇÃO GUILHERME BARROS CORRÊA DE AMORIM RANDOM-SUBSET VOTING Recife 2020 GUILHERME BARROS CORRÊA DE AMORIM RANDOM-SUBSET VOTING Doctoral thesis presented to the Production Engineering Postgraduation Program of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Science in Production Engineering. Concentration area: Operational Research. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ana Paula Cabral Seixas Costa. Co-supervisor: Prof. Dr. Danielle Costa Morais. Recife 2020 Catalogação na fonte Bibliotecária Margareth Malta, CRB-4 / 1198 A524p Amorim, Guilherme Barros Corrêa de. Random-subset voting / Guilherme Barros Corrêa de Amorim. - 2020. 152 folhas, il., gráfs., tabs. Orientadora: Profa. Dra. Ana Paula Cabral Seixas Costa. Coorientadora: Profa. Dra. Danielle Costa Morais. Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. CTG. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção, 2020. Inclui Referências e Apêndices. 1. Engenharia de Produção. 2. Métodos de votação. 3. Votação probabilística. 4. Racionalidade limitada. 5. Teoria da decisão. I. Costa, Ana Paula Cabral Seixas (Orientadora). II. Morais, Danielle Costa (Coorientadora). III. Título. UFPE 658.5 CDD (22. ed.) BCTG/2020-184 GUILHERME BARROS CORRÊA DE AMORIM RANDOM-SUBSET VOTING Tese apresentada ao Programa de Pós- Graduação em Engenharia de Produção da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, como requisito parcial para a obtenção do título de Doutor em Engenharia de Produção. Aprovada em: 05 / 05 / 2020. BANCA EXAMINADORA ___________________________________ Profa. Dra. Ana Paula Cabral Seixas Costa (Orientadora) Universidade Federal de Pernambuco ___________________________________ Prof. Leandro Chaves Rêgo, PhD (Examinador interno) Universidade Federal do Ceará ___________________________________ Profa.
    [Show full text]
  • 638 EC Report
    Elections in the 21st Century: from paper ballot to e-voting The Independent Commission on Alternative Voting Methods Elections in the 21st Century: from paper ballot to e-voting The Independent Commission on Alternative Voting Methods Elections in the 21st Century: from paper ballot to e-voting Membership of the Independent Commission on Alternative Voting Methods Dr Stephen Coleman (Chair), Director of the The Commission was established by the Electoral Hansard Society’s e-democracy programme, and Reform Society, and is grateful to them for lecturer in Media and Citizenship at the London hosting our meetings. School of Economics & Political Science The Electoral Reform Society is very grateful to Peter Facey, Director of the New Politics the members of the Independent Commission for Network the time which they have so freely given and for their commitment to the development of good Paul Gribble CBE, Independent consultant and electoral practices in the UK.The Society, which advisor on Election Law to the Conservative has since 1884 been campaigning for the Party; Editor of Schofield’s Election Law strengthening of democracy (although principally through reform of the voting system), believes Steven Lake, Director (Policy & External Affairs) that the Commission’s report is a major of the Association of Electoral Administrators, and contribution to the debate on the modernisation Electoral Registration Officer for South of the way we vote and that the report should Oxfordshire District Council guide the development of policy and practice
    [Show full text]
  • POLYTECHNICAL UNIVERSITY of MADRID Identification of Voting
    POLYTECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MADRID Identification of voting systems for the identification of preferences in public participation. Case Study: application of the Borda Count system for collective decision making at the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. FINAL MASTERS THESIS Pitshu Mulomba Mukadi Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry Democratic Republic of Congo Madrid, 2013 RURAL DEVELOPMENT & SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT PROJECT PLANNING UPM MASTERS DEGREE 1 POLYTECHNICAL UNIVERSIY OF MADRID Rural Development and Sustainable Management Project Planning Masters Degree Identification of voting systems for the identification of preferences in public participation. Case Study: application of the Borda Count system for collective decision making at the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. FINAL MASTERS THESIS Pitshu Mulomba Mukadi Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry Democratic Republic of Congo Madrid, 2013 2 3 Masters Degree in Rural Development and Sustainable Management Project Planning Higher Technical School of Agronomy Engineers POLYTECHICAL UNIVERSITY OF MADRID Identification of voting systems for the identification of preferences in public participation. Case Study: application of the Borda Count system for collective decision making at the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Pitshu Mulomba Mukadi Bachelor of Sciences in Chemistry [email protected] Director: Ph.D Susan Martín [email protected] Madrid, 2013 4 Identification of voting systems for the identification of preferences in public participation. Case Study: application of the Borda Count system for collective decision making at the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Abstract: The aim of this paper is to review the literature on voting systems based on Condorcet and Borda.
    [Show full text]
  • The Dinner Meeting Will Be Held at the Mcminnville Civic Hall and Will Begin at 6:00 P.M
    CITY COUNCIL MEETING McMinnville, Oregon AGENDA McMINNVILLE CIVIC HALL December 8, 2015 200 NE SECOND STREET 6:00 p.m. – Informal Dinner Meeting 7:00 p.m. – Regular Council Meeting Welcome! All persons addressing the Council will please use the table at the front of the Board Room. All testimony is electronically recorded. Public participation is encouraged. If you desire to speak on any agenda item, please raise your hand to be recognized after the Mayor calls the item. If you wish to address Council on any item not on the agenda, you may respond as the Mayor calls for “Invitation to Citizens for Public Comment.” NOTE: The Dinner Meeting will be held at the McMinnville Civic Hall and will begin at 6:00 p.m. CITY MANAGER'S SUMMARY MEMO a. City Manager's Summary Memorandum CALL TO ORDER PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE INVITATION TO CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC COMMENT – The Mayor will announce that any interested audience members are invited to provide comments. Anyone may speak on any topic other than: 1) a topic already on the agenda; 2) a matter in litigation, 3) a quasi judicial land use matter; or, 4) a matter scheduled for public hearing at some future date. The Mayor may limit the duration of these comments. 1. INTERVIEW AND APPOINTMENT OF MEMBER TO THE BUDGET COMMITTEE 2. INTERVIEW AND APPOINTMENT OF MEMBER TO THE McMINNVILLE HISTORIC LANDMARKS COMMITTEE 3. OLD BUSINESS a. Update from Zero Waste Regarding Fundraising Efforts to Meet Matching Funds b. Approval of Visit McMinnville Business Plan c. Consideration of a Roundabout for the Intersection of Johnson and 5th Streets 4.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Distortion of Voting with Multiple Representative Candidates
    On the Distortion of Voting with Multiple Representative Candidates Yu Cheng Shaddin Dughmi Duke University University of Southern California David Kempe University of Southern California Abstract We study positional voting rules when candidates and voters are embedded in a common metric space, and cardinal preferences are naturally given by distances in the metric space. In a positional voting rule, each candidate receives a score from each ballot based on the ballot’s rank order; the candidate with the highest total score wins the election. The cost of a candidate is his sum of distances to all voters, and the distortion of an election is the ratio between the cost of the elected candidate and the cost of the optimum candidate. We consider the case when candidates are representative of the population, in the sense that they are drawn i.i.d. from the population of the voters, and analyze the expected distortion of positional voting rules. Our main result is a clean and tight characterization of positional voting rules that have constant expected distortion (independent of the number of candidates and the metric space). Our characterization result immediately implies constant expected distortion for Borda Count and elections in which each voter approves a constant fraction of all candidates. On the other hand, we obtain super-constant expected distortion for Plurality, Veto, and approving a con- stant number of candidates. These results contrast with previous results on voting with metric preferences: When the candidates are chosen adversarially, all of the preceding voting rules have distortion linear in the number of candidates or voters.
    [Show full text]