Voter Notes

Polling day Tickets and preferences I hope ticket voting is, or will be, a thing of the past (sadly not for Victoria in November, 2026). https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/voting/how-voting-works/preferential-voting In ticket voting the parties may make deals between themselves and control how your vote's preferences are allocated. The parties encourage a simple and quick "1". They want you to leave the rest to them. Preferences are vital if no candidate for a lower house seat has over 50% of the valid votes. (Then the lowest scoring candidate's votes get to be transferred to the other candidates.) Parties hand out "how-to-vote" material. They tell you how to number your boxes. That is called allocating preferences. The parties may have made deals but you still decide. To number or not to number Is it hard to know how to fill the boxes? You might use the "how-to-vote" of the candidate you most do NOT want. (Never!) Then, just number in exactly the opposite...

Things Electoral - a summary Anyway, here are answers to the questions you did not want to ask: This is not about which boxes you mark 1, 2, 3 etc., it is about marking boxes and being counted. The business of an electoral official is NEVER to tell you what to vote. The official’s business is to ensure you can vote. (I am no longer an official of any kind but I keep to that idea in my posts.)

The voters in South Australia had two ballot papers, very like in an Australian Federal election. The voter was required to number all boxes on their lower house (Assembly) ballot paper. Full preferential voting was used. Failure to preference all candidates made a ballot informal. Some people think full preferential voting ought not to be used. Others think preferences after 1 should be optional. What do you think?

The story of the forthcoming by-election for the Division of Farrer is interesting (to me). Here is a report https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-15/liberal-by-election-candidate-raissa-butkowski-farrer/106456908 (The list of "candidates" is included.)

Every election has Absent votes, and even Absent ("Declaration") Pre-poll votes.

Missabotti Polling Place might once have been like this: Yes, mistakes may be made and there is no correction to the mistake except possibly for a Court of Disputed Returns decision - which will not happen where there is a clear winner. I can guess exactly how the Missabotti failure occurred; however any elector who read the printed instructions on their ballot paper would have simply rejected the erroneous advice of the paid temporary polling official.

NO! Not again!? One whole box.... missing for days... recovered...intact!