Research Note 6 1999-2000

Senate Group Voting Tickets

Gerard Newman
Statistics Group
21 September 1999

Introduction

Senate Group Voting Tickets or 'above the line' voting was first used in the 1984 Senate election following amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

The Senate ballot paper is divided into sections by a horizontal line; voters can choose to vote 'above the line' by placing the number '1' in one of the boxes in that section or by voting 'below the line' by numbering all the boxes in that section. Votes cast 'above the line' are distributed according to the party or group voting ticket registered before the election with the Australian Electoral Commission. Parties or groups can register up to three voting tickets. Non-grouped candidates (except incumbent Senators) can not use Group Voting Tickets and votes for these candidates can only be cast 'below the line'.

Background

Group Voting Tickets are a relatively recent development in Australian elections. They were used (albeit in a slightly different form) in the 1975 and 1979 South Australian Legislative Council elections. The 1984 Senate election was the first use of Group Voting Tickets in their current form. Since then Group Voting tickets have been introduced in the following multi-member proportional representation electoral systems: South Australian Legislative Council (1985), New South Wales Legislative Council (1988), Western Australian Legislative Council (1989) and the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly (1989 and 1992 only). The two legislatures elected by the Hare-Clark system (Tasmanian House of Assembly and ACT Legislative Assembly) are the only cases where the use of proportional representation does not include Group Voting Tickets.

Ticket voting has also been used in single member systems; three by-elections for the Western Australian Legislative Assembly in 1988 (Ascot, Balga and Dale) were conducted using voting tickets.

Despite the quite significant change in the nature of the electoral system brought about by the use of Group Voting Tickets, there has been relatively little discussion on their merits or consequences and virtually no calls for their abolition.

The main advantages claimed for Group Voting Tickets are that they simplify the voting process and reduce the burden on the voter to number all boxes on the ballot paper. They do not require choices to be made between parties about which the voter may have no knowledge or preference. Since their introduction there has been a dramatic reduction in the Senate informal vote. In the six elections before their introduction, the Senate informal vote averaged 9.6 per cent, while in the six elections since, the average has fallen to 3.6 per cent.

The main criticism of Group Voting Tickets is that their introduction has changed the nature of the Senate electoral system to be more like a list system. Election is said to be determined not by voter choice of candidate but by position on the party list. Group Voting Tickets discourage the choice of voters to make an informed preference decision by making the alternative much easier. Thus preference decisions are a result of back room deals between parties rather than a decision of the voter. When combined with low electoral quotas, Group Voting Tickets can possibly lead to the election of micro-party candidates by dint of preference deals rather than by the number of first preference votes, as evidenced in the 1999 NSW Legislative Council election.

Senate results

Group Voting Tickets were first used in the 1984 Senate election, when a surprisingly high 85.7 per cent of voters voted 'above the line' (see Table 1). Since the 1984 election there has been a steady increase in the 'above the line' vote to 94.9 per cent at the 1998 election. However, the rate of increase has slowed in the last few elections and it may be that 95 per cent is the upper limit that can be expected for the proportion of 'above the line' votes.

Table 1 Use of Group Voting Tickets by State 1984-1998

Per cent

	1984	1987	1990	1993	1996	1998
NSW	81.2	83.8	94.3	96.2	95.8	96.2
Vic	90.8	90.4	90.2	95.1	95.4	96.8
Qld	86.3	88.0	91.0	93.6	95.6	95.8
SA	92.6	92.9	93.1	94.7	93.9	92.9
WA	85.1	88.1	91.8	95.0	94.2	94.2
Tas	70.0	68.3	77.1	78.9	72.6	78.2
NT	74.7	77.4	77.3	79.0	81.4	85.6
ACT	64.3	69.2	76.6	84.4	83.5	78.2
Aust	85.7	86.7	91.4	94.4	94.4	94.9

Two distinctive features emerge regarding the use of Group Voting Tickets at Senate elections: differences in usage among the States and Territories, and differences among the various parties (see Table 2).

Table 2 Use of Group Voting Tickets, 1998 Election

Per cent

(a) Includes NP in NSW and Vic.

The States and Territories can be divided into groups according to the usage of Group Voting Tickets. The more populous States have a usage of over 90 per cent and Tasmania and the two Territories have a much lower usage.

A reason for the difference in usage among the States and Territories may be related to the number of candidates typically contesting Senate elections. As 'above the line' voting reduces the burden on voters to number all boxes on the ballot paper its usage can be expected to vary with the number of candidates. Thus usage of Group Voting Tickets can be expected to be higher where there is a larger number of candidates, typically in the more populous States. As the two Territories only elect two Senators each, the number of candidates is fewer than for the States.

A second possible influence may be the type of electoral system that voters in the States and Territories are familiar with. Tasmania and the ACT use the Hare-Clark electoral system, a system that requires voters to vote for individual candidates rather than party lists. Voters in NSW, SA and WA would be more familiar with Group Voting Tickets through their usage in those State's upper houses.

Explaining the difference in usage of Group Voting Tickets among the various parties is less obvious given the difference in party usage shown in Table 2. A feature of the table is the similarity between the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition parties and the differences between these parties and the Australian Democrats and the Greens. The ALP and Coalition parties all recorded usage of over 95 per cent, while the Democrats were substantially lower at 86.5 per cent and the Greens lower again at 82 per cent.

1. One academic study is Reilly, Ben, and Michael Maley, 'The single Transferable Vote and the Alternative Vote Compared' in STV Comparative Perspective, Shaun Bowler and Bernard Grofman, eds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.

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