Voting matters - Issue 16, February 2003

STV in Tasmania

P Dean

Peter Dean has been involved with ERS for many years.

In his article in Voting matters[1], Philip Kestelman raises the issue of positional voting bias. In Tasmania, there has been a continuous process of changing some details of the STV voting system to make it fairer. The problem of positional voting bias was addressed in 1979 and first used in 1980.

A summary of STV in Tasmania from Newman[2] is as follows:

• 1897 First experimental use of STV.
• 1903 Women given the vote.
• 1909 First state-wide election by STV.
• 1917 By-elections and vacancies filled by a recount of the original ballots. First used in 1922.
• 1921 Women allowed to stand as candidates.
• 1922 Deposit lost if less than 20% of the quota if excluded or at the end of the count.
• 1930 Compulsory vote, previously 63-67% turnout, up to 82% in 1928.
• 1941 Grouping by party labels.
• 1954 Parliamentary term reduced from 5 to 3 years.
• 1955 Speaker to be chosen from party with the lower statewide vote.
• 1957 Assembly of 35 instead of 30 to overcome potential deadlock.
• 1972 Term changed to 5 years, and 4 years thereafter.
• 1973 Voters required to make 7 choices instead of 3. Previously 90% of electors restricted their choice to a single party. Franchise reduced to 18.
• 1976 Draw for ballot position, and position within party list.
• 1980 first use of rotated ballot. The printer must issue equal numbers of papers showing different names in the favoured position, starting with the first name alphabetically. Thus with a columnar ballot paper 2, 8, 3 and 7 members in the 4 columns, 16 different printings are made.

A 1957 Select committee reported that it provided the Tasmanian elector with a wider freedom of choice, and a more effective vote than any other method of Parliamentary election in the world.

References

1. P Kestelman. Positional Voting Bias Revised. Voting matters, Issue 15, pp 2-5. June 2002.
2. Terry Newman. Hare-Clark in Tasmania. Joint Library Committee of the Parliament of Tasmania, Parliament House. Hobart. 1992.