Most electoral advances occurred in Australasia over 100 years ago: secret ballots, votes for women, preferences and Tasmania’s renowned Hare-Clark system.
Economist Bruce Felmingham unjustifiably attacked Hare-Clark in the Sunday Tasmanian on April 4. First, he insults electoral staff by asking why the count stopped for a week while “the bureaucracy seemed to be asleep”. The Mercury repeatedly explained what most people know — that preferences can’t be distributed till all postal votes are in. Such votes must be posted by polling day but the Tasmanian Act allows 10 days for delivery (federal elections allow 13). Once the time is up, distributions are completed within hours.
Next, he says a multi-member system “waters down the idea of a local member … standing in the firing line of electoral responsibility.” On the contrary, unlike a single-member one, it lets party-committed voters replace a member with another of the same party.
Then, he questions the fairness of sometimes giving a “16th preference” the same weight as a first. Well, as in a House of Reps election, if a voter’s first choice has been eliminated (or, in Hare-Clark, already elected), the full vote must go to the next choice, and so on.
But perhaps he means where a first choice gets two quotas — twice the votes needed to be elected. That candidate needed only half of each supporter’s vote. Hare-Clark lets each of those voters use the other half to help elect someone else. Again, if the voter’s next choice has been eliminated or already elected, the full half-vote must go to the next choice, and so on. What’s unfair about that?
Finally, he says we should look at using the Senate system instead; he claims it is simpler and cheaper. He implies that it works very differently, but every word of his description of it exactly matches the same feature of Hare-Clark.
Most of the differences, which he fails to describe, are so minor they would save only an hour or two’s counting.
Even the two main differences have little more effect on counting speed. First, Tasmania’s famous Robson Rotation gives all of a party’s candidates an equal chance of heading the party on a ballotpaper.
Second, the Senate’s infamous above-the-line system was adopted by the major parties to hamper minor ones (the same reason as the reduced number of Tasmanian members and the use in the UK, US and Canada of the archaic first-past-the-post, where only first choices count).
Above-the-line lets lazy voters simply tick a party. All that voter’s preferences then follow the party ticket. Tickets ought to suit the party’s interests, but a bungled ALP ticket got Family First’s Fielding elected. A voter can ask to see a ticket but hardly any ever do.
So, sorry Bruce, there is no reason to prefer the Senate system to our excellent Hare-Clark.
