Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Luke Morey (koolhand@aus.social)'s status on Saturday, 03-May-2025 17:19:06 JST Luke Morey

   How great is the Australian political system? Smiling people. Weekend voting. Pre-poll voting widely accepted and not politicised. Preferential voting. An independent national Electoral Commission. Compulsory voting. The secret ballot.

   Patient, civic-minded volunteers! Well-managed vote counting and scrutineers! Lots of polling places with short queues! Vote in your swimmers! Take your dog to the polling booth! Democracy dogs! Democratic sausages!

   I still think we do this better than anyone. Pat yourselves on the back, Australia. #auspol #australia #straya

   • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) (greenskyoverme@ohai.social)'s status on Saturday, 03-May-2025 17:26:13 JST GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)

     in reply to

     @koolhand Most countries vote on weekends, the US, Canada and the UK are a bit of an exception with their Tuesday and Monday voting.

     But Australian preferential voting is really really great, we should so steal that here in Germany.

   • Embed this notice
     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) (greenskyoverme@ohai.social)'s status on Saturday, 03-May-2025 20:56:04 JST GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)

     in reply to

     • Autoerotic Defenestration

     @danielaKay @koolhand When you vote you don’t make a cross at one party, you sort them by putting numbers in front. If your "1" party turns out too weak to get into parliament your "2" vote counts instead and so on.

   • Embed this notice
     Autoerotic Defenestration (danielakay@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Saturday, 03-May-2025 20:56:05 JST Autoerotic Defenestration

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)

     @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand what is preferential voting?

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Autoerotic Defenestration (danielakay@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 12:26:37 JST Autoerotic Defenestration

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)

     @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand oh, Präferenzwahl! That's a pain in the neck to count, or so I have been told...
     I think Bremen or Hamburg are doing Präferenzwahl in their state-level elections.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chicken :cqlgusu: (lookitmychicken@blorbo.social)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 12:26:37 JST Chicken :cqlgusu:

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Autoerotic Defenestration

     @danielaKay @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand it's not that hard, assuming you have paper ballots.

     You start with all the first-preference votes and just count those.

     If no one candidate gets 50%, you take all the ballots from the last-place candidate's pile and redistribute them to the candidate preferenced 2nd on those ballots.

     Still no candidate with 50%? Okay, pick the candidate who's now in last place and redistribute their votes.

     It seems complicated when you think about it all at once, but each individual step in the counting process is straightforward

   • Embed this notice
     ApaulD (apauld@aus.social)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 15:23:56 JST ApaulD

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Autoerotic Defenestration

     @danielaKay @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand Preferential voting. What it is. How to do it. Best explainer ever from The Juice Media

     https://youtu.be/zXHq04W0kBs

   • Embed this notice
     Autoerotic Defenestration (danielakay@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 16:58:10 JST Autoerotic Defenestration

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Chicken :cqlgusu:

     @lookitmychicken @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand in Germany, rach polling station counts their own ballots, which is why we're so fast.

     Does that work for preference voting? After all, party A might have a majority in *this* polling station, so it wouldn't need further counting, but overall in the district party A might not reach the majority, so all polling stations would have to count the second option?
     Or am I misunderstanding the process?

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chicken :cqlgusu: (lookitmychicken@blorbo.social)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 16:58:10 JST Chicken :cqlgusu:

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Autoerotic Defenestration

     @danielaKay @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand I don't know how it works in detail these days, but yep the individual polling stations each count their own votes.

     I think the votes for individual polling stations are tallied for each electorate. Then, if further rounds of counting are required, they know which candidate is in last place. They can ask each polling station to redistribute the votes for that last-place candidate and report back in again. And so on until a winner is identified.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chicken :cqlgusu: (lookitmychicken@blorbo.social)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 17:01:58 JST Chicken :cqlgusu:

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Autoerotic Defenestration

     @danielaKay @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand yeah that's understandable. it's very rare that we don't know the overall winner of an election on the same night, however, even if some of the individual seats might be in doubt.

   • Embed this notice
     Autoerotic Defenestration (danielakay@mastodon.cloud)'s status on Sunday, 04-May-2025 17:01:59 JST Autoerotic Defenestration

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Chicken :cqlgusu:

     @lookitmychicken @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand one of the German City states do preference voting for their state-level elections - either Bremen or Hamburg - and apparently this takes up to four days O.O

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Yellow Readis (yellowreadis@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 05-May-2025 15:52:39 JST Yellow Readis

     in reply to

     • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika)
     • Chicken :cqlgusu:
     • Autoerotic Defenestration

     @lookitmychicken @danielaKay @GreenSkyOverMe @koolhand sorry to jump in - each polling place does an indicative count as well, guessing which 2 will be in the final count. Mostly works, and speeds up the process a bit for prediction on the night. They start again if they get the 2 top ones wrong. And for some seats, they do a 3 candidate indicative count.