Senate vote counting
SSAA National released an E-alert last week encouraging you to Protect your sport - make your vote count. This E-alert outlined the importance of numbering all of the boxes below the line on your Senate Ballot Paper, ensuring you choose the order you would prefer representatives be elected into the Upper House. If you choose to number just one box above the line, you allow your chosen party to dictate the way your vote works.
Senate candidates must win a quota or proportion of votes to be elected. This quota is worked out by dividing the total number of formal ballot papers by one more than the number of vacancies to be filled (ignoring any remainder) and then adding one to the result.
In this example, three Senators are to be elected. The total number of formal votes for the state is 2400.
In this example, all of the Senate Ballot Papers are now examined to see how many first preference votes each candidate received.
Kim is the only candidate to receive the quota of 601 immediately and so is elected. The 129 votes she received in excess of the quota are called ‘surplus votes’. These are transferred to the remaining candidates by distributing all of Kim’s votes, according to her predetermined preferences, at less than their full value, called the ‘transfer value’.
The transfer value is worked out by dividing the number of surplus votes by the total number of ballot papers received by the candidate. In this example:
Transfer value = 0.17671232, or simply 0.177.
This list shows the number of second preferences received by each candidate on Kim’s 730 ballot papers. These ballot papers are then multiplied by their transfer value (ignoring any decimal remainders) and then added to the first preference totals.
Now that Mary and Tom have their quotas, the three vacancies have been filled.
If all of the vacancies have not been filled after the surplus votes have been transferred, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded. The excluded candidate’s ballot papers are distributed, according to preferences, to the remaining candidates. The distribution of preferences from excluded candidates continues until the required number of senators is elected.
It is not surprising that it can take some weeks before we learn which Senators have been elected for each state and territory in Australia.
Information sourced from the Australian Electoral Commission.
Home > Notice board archive > Senate vote counting