Since there is some uncertainty as to whether we can attend the
Assembly meeting in Abbotsford on Saturday, I, a former journalist,
would like to submit the following for possible discussion:
We lived in Australia for 10 years where they had Preferential
Voting [AV]. The voting there was also compulsory. You were fined
if caught not voting.
The mandatory voting led to a lot of grumbling and resentment.
And, ironically, it also led to something even less democratic --
the “donkey vote”.
The donkey vote occurred when angry voters showed their
preference in the order that the names appeared on the ballot. i.e.
starting with “1”, then
“2”, etc. to the bottom of the ballot
sheet. (This was their way of protesting against being forced to
vote.)
The result was that political parties fought to have their
candidate’s name at the top of the list. (I
can’t recall if they drew names out of a hat to decide
on the order of appearance.)
Needless to say the donkey vote often skewed the results. In
this system (at that time), losing candidates chose or were
compelled to give their votes to a winning candidate. Again, I
can’t recall how the system worked at this stage. But I
do know there were many irate voters who saw their votes go to
candidates they disliked.
These are just two pitfalls of preferential and/or compulsory
Voting that members of the Assembly may want to discuss, and
perhaps find a way to avoid.
[Entered online from a scanned document]
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