What’s the deal with preference deals?

As Australian voters attune their political consciousness to talk of interest rate rises, education revolutions & preambulary plebiscites, a matter of great gravity & import may well escape their elucidation yet again: the blurred & beguiling business of preference deals.

We’ve all heard of them. We’re not exactly sure what they are…but they sound important. And as the incubation period of election fever draws to a close, murmurs of their workings are becoming more & more audible:

“Greens leader Bob Brown says the party is getting closer to a national preference deal with the Labor party.” (19 October 2007, ABC News)

“Family First is yet to reach an agreement with the major parties on preferences.” (14 October 2007 smh.com.au)

So what exactly are preference deals?, a niggling voice relegated to the periphery of our minds asks.

Are they simply arrangements with respect to political advertising or do they pertain to something far more authoritative? Might they even wield some influence over the final allocation of my vote?

It is necessary to preface the answers to these questions with a brief overview of the system of voting in Australia.

House of Representatives

At the federal level, Australia uses the preferential system of voting in federal elections for the House of Reps. This means that voters are required to number the candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference. To win a seat in the House of Reps, a candidate needs to secure an absolute majority (50% + 1) of valid votes cast. If a candidate does not secure an absolute majority of primary (or 1st preference) votes, then the candidate with the least number of primary votes is eliminated & his/her votes are reallocated in accordance with their second preferences. This process continues until a candidate has secured 50% + 1 of the total votes.

Preference deals for the House of Representatives

The preferential system of voting allows parties & candidates to reach agreements with other groups to ‘exchange preferences’. Subsequently, candidates & parties will distribute how-to-vote cards to voters as they enter the polling booths. The how-to-vote cards provide suggestions as to how voters should cast their preferences.

But how can parties & candidates, following the making of preference deals, ensure that preferences are allocated according to their suggestions?

Is there something more to preference deals than the arrangement of how-to-vote cards?

The simple answer is no. There is no way of enforcing preference deals made between parties & candidates other than issuing how-to-vote cards. (This, however, is correct only with respect to the casting of votes for the House of Representatives. Preference deals for the Senate operate differently & will be discussed later).

If how-to-vote cards are the end of the matter, why are preference deals so important?

The reason why preference deals receive much attention is that they have been regarded as crucial in determining election results. Most voters are accustomed to using how-to-vote cards & while there may be cases where voters reject the how-to-vote cards, the incidence of substantial deviation from the suggested preferences is rarely high.

Registration & public access to how-to-vote material

Given the significant power how-to-vote material wields over voting patterns of the electorate, it would be reasonable to suppose that such material would be subject to registration.

Think again, dearly enfranchised. Think again.

At Australian federal elections, how-to-vote material does not have to be registered with the Australian Electoral Commission. It only needs to be authorised. That means there is no avenue available to the public to access how-to-vote material with any certainty prior to or following the federal election. Voters are not afforded an opportunity to cast a discerning eye over the outcomes of preference deals, instead forced to hastily scan a glossy compendium of propaganda amidst the flurry of polling day.

Recent research has uncovered the perilous after-effects of prolonged exposure to glossy compendiums of political propaganda. Material boasting a primary colour palette was particularly noted for inducing a higher incidence of frothing at the mouth, permanent blindness and an unabated will to vote Family First, legitimating the confinement of how-to-vote card dissemination to polling day.

The move towards registration of how-to-vote material is however gaining momentum, with some jurisdictions forcing how-to-vote cards to be registered with the relevant agency. South Australia has taken the additional leap of requiring how-to-vote cards to be displayed at polling booths. Tasmania & the ACT have moved to effectively ban the distribution of how-to-vote material.

Senate

When it comes to examining the machinations of Senate preference deals, cast the aforementioned discussion aside. The Senate is a different creature in this respect, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, a proportional system of voting is used in Senate elections. Each state operates as a single electorate, returning 2 members if a territory & 6 members if a state (if half-senate is being elected). Candidates need to reach a quota (14.3% in a normal, half-Senate election) to win.

In voting for the Senate, voters are able to vote either above or below the line, not both. If voting above the line, voters indicate which group of candidates they prefer. This method of voting is called the Group Ticket Voting method. When a voter selects a party using the GTV method (ie, above the line), their vote is deemed to have the full list of preferences lodged by that party. The ‘full list of preferences’ nominated by that party is registered with the AEC in the form of a Group Voting Ticket. The AEC uses these when counting the Senate votes.

Group Voting Tickets therefore have a real effect on the allocation of preferences of those votes cast above the line for the Senate & are the subject of fiercely bargained preference deals between parties & candidates (a stellar example currently found on Senator Andrew Bartlett’s blog).

Pros & cons of Senate GVTs

Despite GVTs having to be registered with & published in advance by the AEC, the ‘above the line’ method of voting has not been free from criticism. It has been argued that such is the complexity of the information about the Group Voting Tickets that “it is unlikely that the average voter could easily determine the fate of his or her vote’s preferences”. The grave implications of this argument on the workings of democracy are exacerbated by revelations that approximately 95% of voters employ the ‘above the line’ method when voting for the Senate.

Then again, perhaps the availability of the ‘above the line’ vote is preferable to the system which existed prior to the 1984 Senate election, where voters bore the burden of having to number all of the boxes on the ballot paper. The previous system proved to be so onerous that in the 6 elections prior to its reform, the Senate informal vote averaged 9.6%. In the six elections since the introduction of ‘above the line’ voting, the average has fallen to 3.6%.

Ultimately, however, the jury remains out on ‘above the line’ voting, as “there has been relatively little discussion on [its] merits or consequences and virtually no calls for [its] abolition”.

Thoughts, feelings & recommendations

In a liberal democracy, one would surmise it is of fundamental importance that voters know precisely where their vote is going. The confusion surrounding preference deals is therefore deeply concerning, to put it mildly. While moves towards the introduction of ‘above the line’ voting may have actioned a significant reduction in the informal vote, such reforms have managed to somewhat escape scrutiny. The difficult questions remain to be asked: has the new system made our democracy more robust? Or has it simply served to pander to the Australian apathetic dream? Has it been a case of prioritising quantity over quality?

In the context of voting for the House of Representatives, the public’s knowledge of the mechanics of preference deals remain patchy, at best. Perhaps the ensuant confusion as to their effect is heightened in jurisdictions employing optional preferential voting (as in NSW), as opposed to full preferential voting (as in the Commonwealth). Nevertheless, more needs to be done in the way of developing formal registration regimes, combined with public educational efforts, to ensure voters possess a heightened awareness of the power (or lack of) that their representatives maintain over their exercise of a basic democratic right.