I'm going to preface by saying that I don't want my votes to go to the Dark Lord or the Liberal Party or the liars in the Labour Party. They are both completely corrupt and I'm adamant that they need to feel some pain.

So then I want to look at the independents and consider what they do and what they don't do, and will they be truly representative, or are they just there scrambling for votes to get some money and power? Who can say?

So what I'd like to do to make sure the Liberals and Labour don't get my vote, is find some kind of flowchart, that shows if I vote for an independent or a smaller party, where does that preference go to, so that I don't feed the party that I don't want to get my vote in the end.

Is there any resource out there that can show me where the preferences get fed to, so I can make an informed choice.

I feel like this should be a legal obligation, that we are all given this kind of information in a flowchart. But I can't find it. Can anybody help?

Thank you so much.

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[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I'm not so sure? Are 4th or even 3rd preferences ever counted? If you wanted to "withhold your vote" then just ensure that no one with any likelihood of winning is in your first 4 preferences.

Regardless, it's the attitude that bugs me more than anything. The US is an absolute god damn shit show and I'll acknowledge I just get kind of triggered when anything has a whiff of americanism.

The point I was trying to make is I suppose intangible, wistful, and perhaps idealistic... but I just wish Australian politics wasn't about picking a tribe that you're going to line up behind and was more focused on policy and representation.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

Are 4th or even 3rd preferences ever counted?

What? Yes, they are counted incredibly often, if not always. For an example, here's the preference flow for the Division of Melbourne in 2022:

They were still counted even when Adam Bandt won in the fourth round. If you don't think the parties look at the rest of that flow, at which voters they might need to court to win next time, at what candidates might stand the best chance in a seat, than you're stark-raving mad.

...but I just wish Australian politics wasn't about picking a tribe that you're going to line up behind and was more focused on policy and representation.

I think the Murdoch media, and by extension Fairfax now, and every other major outlet, pushes a narrative about that sort of tribalism. But out in the real world, from what I've seen, that's just not the case. The biggest example of this is media and polling pushing a two-party preferred system when we live in a preferential one. Major media isn't daring to talk about the fairly likely outcome that we end up with a minority government. Something I personally feel is the best outcome for representing Australia equally.

Edit: I'd like to point out as well that the above is a fairly rare example. In most unsafe electorates, no one candidate even comes close to 50% of first preferences like Adam did here.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

That's interesting.

I'll admit that's not quite how I thought preferences were counted, but I'm not sure it really supports your point?

If I'm reading that correctly, only 10% of ballots had their 3rd (or more) preference counted.

My original suggestion of casting a protest ballot by keeping the favourite candidates in the lowest preference still works. Although it's not really a distinct act of protest so much as just the intended operation of the preference system.

[–] WeirdOrange@aussie.zone 1 points 3 days ago

You're looking more for a disruptive or strategic vote.

As for how to strategically vote: look at those preference flows from earlier & pay close attention to the votes per candidate at each stage and how close some might be. Your goal is to try and push one of those last-placed candidates in one of the elimination rounds ahead of 2nd last through your preferences (easiest is to give them your 1 vote).

The ideal outcome would be to get certain preference flows activating earlier to try and alter who makes it to the final two or three.

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