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...

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.)

Did you receive an unrequested Postal Vote Application mail package?