The purpose of an electoral system is to translate the will of the electorate, as expressed through the ballot box into members of a legislative body. Australia is one of the oldest continuous democracies in the world, the Commonwealth of Australia was created in 1901 when the former British colonies, now the six states agreed to federate. The Australian colonies had inherited an electoral tradition from Britan that included limited franchise and public and plural voting.In order to implement and underpin the electoral system, Victoria introduced the secret ballot in 1855, which became known throughout the world as ‘the Australian ballot’.
Heywood (2007) suggests that the secret ballot is considered as the guarantee of a fair election, which avoids the danger of bribery and intimidation (Heywood 2007, p. 254). In 1856, South Australia eliminated professional and property qualifications and gave the vote to all adult men, and in 1892 gave adult women the vote. In the 1890s the colonies adopted the principle of one vote per person, stopping the practice of plural voting.
The Australian political system was established in 1901, and it was modeled on the Westminister parliament. The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia is made up of two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Australia uses a voting system called Majority Preferential voting for electing the lower House of Representatives, the Proportional voting system is used for electing the Senators. Although Australia is an independent nation, Queen Elizabeth ll of Great Britain is also formally Queen of Australia.The Queen appoints a Governor-General to represent her, the Governor-General has a wide range of powers, but by convention, acts only on the advice of ministers on virtually all matters.
In practice, general elections are held when the Governor-General agrees to a request from the Prime Minister, who selects the date of the election. Due to the low turnout of voluntary voters, compulsory voting was introduced in Australia in 1924, in which all citizens over the age of eighteen are required to vote at elections.Although the Australian voting systems is considered relatively fair and democratic, the role or function of elections is always difficult. The complex nature of the voting systems does not accurately reflect the will of people.
In addition, the voting systems inherently under-represent the will of racial minorities and Aboriginals. Majority Preferential Voting – House of Representatives Bennet (1996) discusses that the Commonwealth Electoral Bill, proposed the majority preferential vote (MPV) for the House of Representatives in 1918 (Bennet 1996, p. 24).Voters are required to rank candidates in order of preference, thereby potentially having a say in the election of all the successful candidates. In order for the vote to be counted, the ballot papers must be marked according to the rules of voting, so that they do not create informal votes. For instance, firstly, voters must number each of the candidates according to their preference.
If a voter’s most preferred candidate does not attract sufficient votes to be elected, the voter may still have an opportunity to determine the fate of the other candidates in the race.Bennet states that MPV is a majoritarian electoral system operating with single-seat constituencies (Bennet 1996, p. 25). In order to be elected, a candidate requires at least 50 percent of the vote. If no candidate achieves an overall majority of first preference votes, then the candidate with the lowest first preference vote is eliminated. The votes of the eliminated candidate will be distributed to the remaining candidates on the basis of the second preferences.
Candidates are eliminated in this way until one candidate reaches a majority. Advantage of the Majority Preferential Voting systemIn Australia, the House of Representatives is the lower house of the Australian Parliament, currently composed of 150 representatives elected from single-member constituencies. By comparison the majority Preferential voting systems are easier to understand than the Proportional voting system, and can produce relatively speedy results. In the Preferential voting system, fewer votes are wasted than in the first-past-the-post system.
Meanwhile, the system lessens any perceived dangers of vote-splitting, voters can give preferences to two similar candidate.Bennet has argued that in Australia the possibility of the so-called ‘three-cornered contest’ between the two major conservative parties was a major reason for the system to be introduced for the House of Representatives elections in 1918 (Bennet 1996, p. 90). Unlike the second-ballot system, voters do not have to return to the polling booth on a second occasion. So that, the outcome cannot be influenced by deals made between candidates.
Disadvantage of the Majority Preferential Voting system The principal disadvantage of the Majority Preferential voting system is that the results do not always reflect the wishes of the electorate.Heywood analyses that the two-party system and single-party government are manufactured by the majoritarian bias of the electoral system, and the result does not reflect the distribution of popular preference (Heywood 2007, p. 260). In three-cornered contests the result is often more dependent upon which party polls the least first preference votes rather than which party polls the most. So, in the Preferential voting system, the winning candidates may enjoy little first-preference support, it can be asked whether the winner is truly the local representative most preferred by voters.Ironically, when Preferential voting arrangements require the allocation of preferences to all candidates on the ballot paper, voters may be required to express preferences for the candidates that they oppose.
In addition, to produce a valid ballot paper, voters have to rank the candidates that they may know little about. As a result, some voters selected the candidates overwhelmingly, and the votes do not precisely represent their wishes. Proportional Voting – Senators The Australian Senate is one of the most powerful upper houses of any parliament in the world.With equal representation of the States. In Australia, there are six states and two territories, twelve senators from each state and two each from the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. The functions of the Senate are to represent the states equally and to review the proposals and decisions of the House of Representatives and the executive government.
Proportional representation voting was introduced to the Australian parliament in 1948, it is designed to secure the election of several candidates in each state.Equal number of the senators in each state was intended by the frames of the Constitution to protect the less-populous states. The basic concept of the Proportional voting system is to allocate seats to parties in the legislature in proportion to the votes cast at an election (Heywood 2007, p. 261). To achieve this, a number of different and complex computational arrangements have been devised. Quota is the main method used in this voting system, the quota is obtained by dividing the total number of valid votes by the number of seats to be allocated, and adding one to the result.
For instance, if the total of valid votes in a state at an election for six Senators is 700,000, the quota is 100,001. The candidate have to win at least 100,001 votes to be elected. Advantage of the Proportional Voting system The use of the Proportional voting system makes it very unlikely that one party will hold all seats in a prticular region. The system protects smaller and less-populous states, Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland against the possible domination of the more prosperous and more populous states of Victoria and New South Wales.Theoretically, proportional Representation generally gives an accurate translation of votes into seats.
Heywood states that the larger the number of seats to be filled the more accurate the result interprets the true will of the people (Heywood 2007, p. 261). Moreover, Proportional representation has also enabled small parties and independents to gain representation in the Senate, and provid a place in the federal parliament for a wider expression of community viewpoints. In addtion, the Proportional voting systems encourage parties to nominate a wide range of candidates.
As a consequence, more women are likely to be elected, and also some representatives from minority cultures. Disadvantage of the Proportional Voting system The Proportional voting system is a complex model, the way they allocate seats can be extremely difficult for voters to understand. To successfully implement this system, may require more education and training by voters. The main criticism of the Proportional voting system suggest that this system is much more likely to make a coalition government. Since the tendency of the Proportional representation systems give rise to coalition governments and a fragmented party system.
Small parties getting a disproportionately large amount of power, large parties may be forced to form coalitions with much smaller parties.Heywood explores that the result is that their policies are typically thrashed out in post-election deals, and thus are not endorsed by any set of electors (Heywood 2007, p. 260). Meanwhile, this is a closed system, the voters are unable to enforce accountability by throwing a party out of power or a particular candidate out of office.So that, under a Proportional voting system, it is very difficult to remove a reasonably-sized central party from power. In addition, under the Proportional voting system, the parties are able to decide that who has the security of being on the list and where on the list candidates are placed.
The Role of minor parties in the electorate It is widely agreed that minor parties play an improtant role in Federal elections. Australia’s unique preferential voting system allows the minor parties to have a significant influence through preferences.The unique arithmetic voting system used to decide the results of elections, and the minor parties votes have a considerable influence over the translation of votes into seats. Since 1984, a full distribution of preferences has been undertaken in every electorate. Bennett has argued that the problem with using the full distributions is that it is difficult to isolate the preference flow of each minor party to one of the major parties (Bennett 1996, p. 57).
For minor parties and independents, where preferences are likely to be distributed, the direction of preferences is more important as it can influence the result.Parties both major and minor can also engage in preference ‘deals’, a case of I will give you a high preference if you reciprocate. That can complicate the sequence on a how-to-vote. If the result of election is made by a deal of two parties, the voting system is more likely to be controlled by political parties instead of reflecting the will of people. History of the Aboriginals vote Aboriginals in Australians were only considered as subject of the British Empire after 1843, and even now their social stratification is referred to as second-class and a subordinate group in Australia.
Macionis and Plummer 2008 suggest that social stratification is stable, because it is built on ideology, the policy or system does not favour the lower-class (Macioni & Plummer 2008, p. 233). Before 1893, indigenous people were deliberate barred from voting by some states in Australia. At that time, Australians thought it would be acceptable to limit the rights of people who did not have white skin (History of the Indigenous Vote 2002, p. 4).In 1949, the Chifley government passed an act of Parliament conferring the right to vote in Commonwealth elections on everybody entitled to vote in their state, Aboriginal people included.
In1971, Senator Neville Bonner became the first Indigenous person to sit in the Commonwealth Parliament. Technically, today Aboriginal people have the same citizenship rights as other Austalians. Despite this, there has been only one Aboriginal judge and one Aboriginal magistrate in the justice system. Only two Aboriginal senators in the Commonwealth parliament.
The Inequality vote for Aboriginals in AustraliaWhen the Commonwealth Electoral Act was passed in 1902, it still negated the right to vote in federal elections those Aboriginal people not enrolled to vote in state elections. Section 41 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act stated that only those who had the right to vote in their state, then had the right to vote in Commonwealth elections (Australia Electoral Commission 2011). The Act was interpreted very narrowly to Aboriginal people. According to the Act, only those Aboriginal people whose names were already on the electoral roll for their state elections would be able to vote in the Commonwealth elections.In 1962, Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that indigenous people should have the right to enrol and vote at Federal elections, including Northern Territory elections (Australia Electoral Commissiion 2011). However, the enrolment was not compulsory, and a low level of education for Aboriginals often allows for inadequacies and therefore they do not take their voting right seriously.
In addition, The Northern Territory is not a state, so their votes have not the same weight as the votes from the residents of the states.Inequalities from various respects susggest that the voting system under-represents the will of Aboriginals in the parliament. Conclusion The Electoral systems attract high public attention, because they provide opportunities for the electorate to influence the political process. Meanwhile, the voting systems have a crucial impact on party performance, they directly or indirectly determine who will hold government power (Heywood 2007, p. 264). Obviously, it is difficult to create a perfect electoral system, however, it is possible to create reasonable good and democratic voting systems.
Good voting systems is considered by a number of factors, firstly the prime requirement of an electoral system is that it enables the citizens of a nation to elect their legislative members. How much does an electoral system enable the voters’ wishes to be reflected, and the balance of their votes to be interpreted into seats. Secondly, whether or not an electoral system is easily understood by the voters. If a system is difficult to comprehend, how it delivers information to the voters and how much the result can reprsent the will of the people.Thirdly, does the electoral system help ensure that a wide range of views is heard in the legislature. Whether the majority of the electorate support a new or re-elected government at the time of the election.
Elections are a major democratic tool of expressing the will of the people about the political government. These questions above lead governments to think about what is the best electoral system to use to elect members to represent the will of the people. Australia has represented a vast, democratic experiment, ranging from the franchise and the methods to weigh votes, to use compulsory voting to increase turnout.Australia has also been at the forefront of electoral innovation, and was one of the first countries to allow voting for women and a broader franchise.
On the other hand, through analysing the advantages and disadvantages of the two main voting systems in Australia, which found that the electoral systems still do not accurately reflect the public voice. To improve the voting system and meet the public expectations, Australians expect that the government takes public concerns into account, to make the voting systems more fair and equitable, transparent and accoutable.
