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Voting and Elections Voting Voting and elections 2013 1 OVERVIEW 17 DRAWING ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES HOT TOPICS HOT Hot tip: distribution and redistribution – 2 ELECTIONS IN AUSTRALIA who draws the lines? – gerrymanders – House of Representatives elections – hot tip: hot tip: gerrymander – malapportionment and coalition – Senate elections – double dissolution ‘one vote one value’ – malapportionment and elections – House of Representatives by-elections Australian law – zonal systems. – casual Senate vacancies – state and territory 84 elections – local government elections. 20 HOW VOTES ARE COUNTED First-past-the-post voting – preferential voting 4 WHO GETS TO VOTE? – optional preferential voting – proportional Hot tip: franchise – the Commonwealth franchise representation systems – voting in proportional – states and territories – local government councils representation ballots – quotas – Hare-Clark – history of the franchise. vote counting – formal and informal votes – legal disputes over elections. 7 COMPULSORY ENROLMENT AND VOTING 24 Further InformatION Hot tip: voter turnout – What if eligible voters don’t vote? – compulsory voting: unique to Australia? – how we got compulsory enrolment and voting – current enrolment procedures. 11 CURRENT VOTING PROCEDURES 12 WHO CAN BECOME AN ELECTION CANDIDATE? How do candidates nominate? – how parties choose candidates – hot tip: preselection – preselection and the law – party registration – election funding and candidate finances. This is the eighty-fourth issue in the series Hot Topics: legal issues in plain language, published by the Legal Information Access Centre (LIAC). Hot Topics aims to give an accessible introduction to an area of law that is the subject of change or debate. AUTHOR NOTE This issue of Hot Topics has been written by Associate Professor Disclaimer: Hot Topics is intended as an introductory guide only and Rodney Smith and Dr Anika Gauja, Senior Research Fellow, should not be interpreted as legal advice. While every effort is made Department of Government and International Relations, to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information, the Legal University of Sydney. Information Access Centre does not assume responsibility for any errors or omissions. Cover image: A voter places their absentee vote in the ballot box at a polling booth at St Josephs School in Maroubra, Sydney, during the Copyright: Copyright in Hot Topics is owned by the Library Council New South Wales State Election, 24 March 2007. Lee Besford, Sun of New South Wales. Material contained herein may be copied for Herald (Sydney). the non-commercial purpose of study or research, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). EDITOR: Cathy Hammer Hot TOPICS ISSN 1322-4301, NO. 84 DESIGN: Bodoni Studio Photos: Fairfax Syndication – cover image, pages 4, 6, 15; Age Fotostock – page 8; Flickr – page 11; AAP – page 14. Overview Elections are common decision-making Hot Tip procedures. Sometimes these decisions have limited consequences, such as the Elections for the House of Representatives election of a school fundraising committee. and the Senate are usually referred to as Sometimes they have effects felt across the ‘federal elections’. world, such as when a Pope or US President is elected. Where elections have limited consequences, the rules applied systems that constitutionally divide government between to them are often minimal and the procedures informal. national and state or regional bodies. Over a three or four A school fundraising committee member might be elected on year cycle, Australians will vote for representatives in a simple show of hands at a meeting where whoever turns legislative bodies at national, state and local levels. Each up gets to vote. Where elections have larger consequences, of these elections will be based on different laws. When the rules that develop around them tend to become more Australians move from one state or territory to another, they complicated and procedures much more formal. Only will find that the electoral laws governing them will differ certain types of people are allowed to run for office and to from those in the state or territory they have left. vote. The votes are counted according to specific rules that It is easy to become confused about Australian laws about determine who wins the election. voting and elections. This Hot Topics issue explains some There are many ways to run an election. Governments in of the most important features of Australian electoral laws. Australia and elsewhere have experimented with these many It deals in greatest detail with laws at the Commonwealth ways of running elections, with the result that electoral or national level; however, it also points to some of the laws are complex. This is particularly true in countries differences in election law between the different states and like Australia with federal systems of government; that is, territories and with local government elections. QUICK FACTS > Who can vote? … the right to vote has changed over time, but is now based on adult Australian citizenship – see page 5 > Federal elections – how often are elections held and how many seats are there? … there are 150 House of Representatives seats, elected every 3 years; there are 76 Senators but only half the state Senators usually face election at a time and their term is 6 years – see pages 3-4 > What are by-elections and casual senate vacancies? … if a Member of the House of Representatives or the Senate has to be replaced, these are the different methods used for their replacement – see page 2 > Is voting compulsory in all elections? … voting is compulsory in all state and federal elections and not all states make local government elections compulsory but they are in NSW – see page 7 > Are you enrolled automatically when you turn 18? … new ‘automatic enrolment’ laws will allow government agencies to share information to automatically enroll eligible people after July 2013 – see page 10 > What are the requirements for registering a party? … for Commonwealth elections, a party must have a written constitution, have 500 members or at least 1 member of parliament and needs to pay $500; states have different requirements – see pages 14-15 > How votes are counted? … preferential voting is used to elect one representative, but where more than one representative is to be elected from each electorate, e.g. in Senate elections, proportional representation is used; the counting is quite complicated, involving a quota system – for details see pages 22-23 Overview 1 Elections in Australia The most important elections in which most At the next federal election, 40 of the 76 Senate positions Australians will participate are those for will be filled. Half Senate elections do not have to coincide representatives in national, state or territory with House of Representatives elections, although they and local legislative bodies. The major kinds usually do. The last half-Senate election that did not coincide with a House election was held in 1970. of Australian elections are as follows: Double DISSolutIon EleCTIonS HOUSE of REPreSentatIveS The exception to the constitutional provision that half EleCTIonS the Senate be elected at one time is a ‘double dissolution’ Elections for the House of Representatives (the lower house election, so-called because the Governor General dissolves of the Commonwealth Parliament) decide which elected both houses of Parliament at once. In this case, all senators representatives will form the national government. Usually and Members of the House of Representatives must retire either the Labor Party or the Liberal and National Coalition or recontest their positions. The Constitution provides for wins a majority of the 150 House of Representatives seats double dissolution elections to resolve deadlocks between and forms a government. The 2010 election was unusual the House of Representatives and the Senate; that is, lengthy in that Labor and the Coalition each won 72 seats. Labor disagreements between the two houses about whether a bill gained the support of enough of the minor party and should become law. Only six federal elections since 1901 have Independent Members of the House of Representatives to been double dissolution elections. form a minority government. The Australian Constitution requires that House of HOUSE of REPreSentatIveS Representatives elections be held at least every three years. BY-EleCTIonS They may be held sooner if the Governor General ‘dissolves’ When a Member of the House of Representatives resigns, the House of Representatives (usually at the request of the dies or is no longer eligible to sit in Parliament, his or her Prime Minister). In such elections, each member of the seat can be filled through a by-election. Only voters in the House is elected from a different geographical region called former Member’s electorate vote for a replacement Member. an ‘electorate’. A by-election is often contested by a larger number of candidates than would normally contest the electorate at a federal election. By-elections are generally seen as a test Hot Tip: Coalition of a government’s popularity; however, they rarely have an impact on who governs. Most governments can afford to lose The Coalition is an agreement between the the few by-elections that occur between federal elections Liberal Party and the National Party that without this affecting their majorities in the House of means that they share government ministries Representatives. This has obviously not been the case during and often develop policies together.
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