guess who continues to support these measures-that is right the so-called Darlings here of the Dems and Greens.

I’m not sure what the Democrats’ position is, but the Greens have opposed at least some of the things you are objecting to. In particular Bob Brown voted against the changes to the electoral act that informalised the 1, 2, 3, 3, 3 vote.

I imagine with the absence of the Democrats in NSW

Lyn Shumack is the Senate candidate in NSW for the Democrats btw.

I imagine with the absence of the Democrats in NSW, there’ll be some votes going her way above and beyond the 7-8% mark.

But will that actually improve their position Mark? The Greens will normally [1] be better off getting the whole Democrat ticket (when they actually did that is) than some fraction of those same Democrat voters who vote for them in the absence of their first preference. It will make it harder, not easier to win if half those votes go to Labor or the Liberals.

[1] The exceptions being, obviously, when the Democrats preference somebody ahead of the Greens who then uses their quote to go past the Greens (as happened in Victoria). Or when the Democrats get in front of the Greens themselves, thereby winning the seat. But those are the risks you need to take. There are only ideological reasons to trade preferences if both parties don’t consider a trade their best chance of winning.

Kim & Angharad – thanks for the correction. I must be ga-ga as I’m certain that there was a minimum required, about 20%, to be valid.
Can we also warn against the EXHAUSTED preference – eg 1,2,3,3,3,3 which, although technically legal, is illegal to advocate. It only helps the majors.

Yes you are ga-ga, but that hasn’t stopped you further displaying your ignorance and lack of ability to check your facts b4 posting. S329A that dealt with advocacy was repealed by Parliament in 1997, making the ‘illegal to advocate’ part of your statement false if not dangerously misleading. The difference is that during the 1997 election when 1,2,3,3 was last advocated it was counted as a formal vote but now it is informal. If i were you i’d check the facts before going off about what you think is a valid vote – that figure of 20% you are putting out there is actually 90% and that is a vast difference to what is required to meet ‘formality obligations’.

Finally, amphibious you may have it worked out that this benefits the majors – but guess who continues to support these measures-that is right the so-called Darlings here of the Dems and Greens.

BTW Andrew E what you describe as your clever person’s voting technique may or may not have resulted in a formal vote depending on the number of candidates and the number of boxes you actually filled in. If as you stated there were hundreds of candidates and you filled in as described with repeated numbers…

‘At this point all the other dullards and mediocrities get equal whatever I’m up to (16 in this example), whereupon my vote is still valid but it exhausts.

In that example there is every likelihood the vote would be informal due to the use of repeated numbers. I am not supporting this situation, far from it just pointing out the complexity of voting BTL.