Optional Preferential ballot paper. VEC Instructions misleading

The instructions on Victoria's upper-house ballot paper may have mislead voters by encouraging voters to not complete all of the below the line preference data.  This may end up effecting the outcome of Western Metropolitan Region

The instructions for below-the-line voting encourages voters to just place the numbers 1-5 in the boxes below.  This minimises the effectiveness and value of the voter's ballot as many below-the-line votes will exhaust and end up on the Votes-without-value pile.

Instead of advising voters to place the number 1 to 5 to indicate the candidate of your choice the VEC should have said "Indicate in order of preference a minimum of 5 candidates of your choice.  In order to maximise your vote you should number each square sequentially in the order of your choice corresponding to each candidate" or something similar.

The instructions given give the impression that you should only number 5 boxes.

There is no logic to support placing a minimum number of five on a ballot paper.  If your going to adopt optional preferential you might as well introduce optional voting as opposed to compulsory voter registration.

Many parties, knowing that they could not elect all, nominate five candidates per group.  This not only has the effect of inflating the number of candidates but it also devalues the vote as many voters will just choose the group they wish to support and their vote will stop there and never go beyond. This has the effect of turning our preferential voting system into a de-facto party list system

If we are to continue to maintain an optional preferential ballot then we will have to consider adopting a reiterative counting system, such as the Wright system, that takes into consideration exhausted ballots and recalculates the quota on each iteration. A reiterative counting system would do way with the distortion that arises from the segmentation of the ballot and more accurately reflect the voters intentions.  On exclusion of candidates from the count the ballot is reset and votes distributed as if the excluded candidate(s) had not stood.  Each iteration will only include distribution of primary votes and surplus votes.  The process of iteration continues until all vacant positions are elected in a single iteration. One transaction per candidate. One vote one value.

Segmentation and Surplus Transfer flaws come into play

Flaws in the way the Victorian Upper House is counted are likely to effect the outcome of the Western Metropolitan Region. The problem lies with the method of Segmentation and the calcualton of the Surplus Transfer Value.

Analysis, of what is going to be an extremely close and controversial count, has indicated that if the VEC used a mathematically correct and weighted formula for calculating a candidate's Surplus Transfer Value and  if the results were determined by a single transaction reiterative counting system. such as outlined in the Wright System, the result of the election could differ.  Likewise if Victoria had adopted the Meek method of counting the ballot. Both systems more accurately reflect the voters intentions

The quickest and easiest method of testing to see of the outcome is effected by Segmentation is to recount the ballot excluding all candidates except the last six left standing,  (ALP 3, Liberal 2, and Greens 1) Likewise you could apply the Western Australia method of calculating the Surplus Transfer Value again exlcuding all canidates except the last six standing. Similar flaws had denied Greens Candiat, Larrissa Waters election in the 2007 Queensland Senate count.

Segmentation is the system adopted that distributes an excluded candidates votes based on the value or group of votes allocated.  It was implemented to facilitate a manual count and to minimise the impact of the flaw in calculation of the Surplus Transfer Value.  It is akin  to dealing from the bottom of the deck in a game of cards. With a computerised electronic counting system there is no justification or need for segmentation.

All votes should be transferred in a single transaction.  Better still the ballot should be reset and started from a fresh following every exclusion.  This would allow for a recalculation of the quota taking into account any ballot papers that had exhausted and would allow minor party votes to contribute to a previously elected candidate's surplus value. All ballot papers are treated equally and distributed as if the excluded candidates had not stood.  One vote -one value.