Elections are coming soon, and I’ll definitely be voting for the Secular Party of Australia. Religious groups are nowhere near as politically influential here as in some other countries I could name, but I’d like to keep it that way. And the wall of separation between church and state can always use some shoring up.
But isn’t it a waste of a vote? Not here. Australia uses a system of ‘preferences’, where votes for minor parties aren’t discarded — they flow on to whoever the party (or you) specifies. It does mean that we get a proliferation of single issue parties like the Fishing Party. But then you might think the Fishing Party is a good idea. Also, some scary fringe parties can agglomerate power — like Family First or the Christian Democrats. (Or the Secular Party.) But at least you can throw your vote to someone you’d actually like to see win, instead of playing the cynical gamesmanship that American voters have to engage in. My vote will probably be passing through a few parties — probably Greens, then Labor.
13 November 2007 at 11:36 pm
Frankly I would be happy with any party that had vaguely ethical policies – something sadly lacking in the UK at the moment. Our left wing is so far right, the right wing are having to go left because there’s no more right to go without becoming a fascist. Without proportional representation there’s almost no point voting in certain areas. I fear the capitalist consumerist economists have won and the dream of an ethical democracy is but the hint of a butterfly’s wing on one’s cheek …
15 November 2007 at 8:43 pm
I do like the idea. I would like to know if there are safeguards to insure that someone would be elected that only really received say 25% of the entire vote.
16 November 2007 at 12:20 am
The winner is the first to get 50% of the vote.
So if no one party gets the 50%, you peel off the party with the least votes, and then redistribute those votes according to their preferences.
Repeat until someone gets more than 50%.
So I guess in theory someone could get elected even though they weren’t everyone’s first choice. In practice people aren’t so fringy.
19 November 2007 at 8:16 am
Yes, your votes will tend to veer to the left somewhat, in Perth.