In the 2010 Federal election, preferences from the Australian Greens are almost worthless to the major parties in electing Senators. Only in Western Australia (and possibly Tasmania) do Green preferences, based on current polling, affect the outcome of the Senate election. That is the conclusion from my latest batch of simulations of the forthcoming Australian senate election.
From my previous simulations, we can see the Senate election this year is going to be a lot less interesting than in 2007. Solid Green voting and lower Coalition voting means most states will return 3 ALP senators, 2 Coalition and 1 Green. However, of the slim pickings available, the most interesting Senate battles this year are probably in Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales.
Since we use above-the-line preferential voting in counting the ballots cast for the Australian Senate, political parties are able to do deals with each other to rank their candidates higher or lower. This "saves" the vast majority of voters from having to do it themselves (Luke's tip: ALWAYS VOTE BELOW THE LINE).
Above-the-line voting leads to a lot of back-room dealing before an election whereby parties try to gain favourable preference deals, hoping to ride preferences into the Senate (ala Steven Fielding in Victoria in 2004). This wheeling and dealing is generally an unpleasant affair since strategists have to weigh up the desire for a good deal versus doing a deal with ideological enemies.
Despite the angst caused by the desire to get good preference deals, in the majority of cases the stress counts for naught. Put simply, if you get enough votes you get elected. Preference deals are far behind in effectiveness. It is only in borderline elections that the arcane black magic of party preference deals actually matter, and even then, with so many independent actors in the system, for an individual party, preference deals may as well be random. This is backed up by repeatedly by the results of my advanced election simulator, apollo, which is going to be applied to today's question:
Do the major parties need Green preferences in the Senate this year?
From my previous simulations, we can see the Senate election this year is going to be a lot less interesting than in 2007. Solid Green voting and lower Coalition voting means most states will return 3 ALP senators, 2 Coalition and 1 Green. However, of the slim pickings available, the most interesting Senate battles this year are probably in Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales.
Since we use above-the-line preferential voting in counting the ballots cast for the Australian Senate, political parties are able to do deals with each other to rank their candidates higher or lower. This "saves" the vast majority of voters from having to do it themselves (Luke's tip: ALWAYS VOTE BELOW THE LINE).
Above-the-line voting leads to a lot of back-room dealing before an election whereby parties try to gain favourable preference deals, hoping to ride preferences into the Senate (ala Steven Fielding in Victoria in 2004). This wheeling and dealing is generally an unpleasant affair since strategists have to weigh up the desire for a good deal versus doing a deal with ideological enemies.
Despite the angst caused by the desire to get good preference deals, in the majority of cases the stress counts for naught. Put simply, if you get enough votes you get elected. Preference deals are far behind in effectiveness. It is only in borderline elections that the arcane black magic of party preference deals actually matter, and even then, with so many independent actors in the system, for an individual party, preference deals may as well be random. This is backed up by repeatedly by the results of my advanced election simulator, apollo, which is going to be applied to today's question:
Do the major parties need Green preferences in the Senate this year?
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