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The article’s discussion of voting systems and their flaws is what makes this article excellent and worth reading.
Optional preferential voting is hugely flawed. The final four paragraphs especially:
The LNP is not overwhelmingly popular – the LNP hasn’t won a majority of the vote at either the 2020 or 2024 elections, but look set to win a significant majority in addition to the mayoralty. There is no single centre-left party that can rival them in popularity, but Labor and the Greens did poll a majority of the council vote between them.
It is true that the result would probably do a better job of reflecting how people voted under CPV than OPV, but I don’t think that should be the end of the story. Any single-member electorate system will do a very poor job of representing a community that is voting the way we saw in Brisbane last night.
It doesn’t have to be that way. New South Wales, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and to a lesser extent South Australia and regional Victoria have proportional electoral systems that do a better job of representing voters. Even three-member wards would produce much better results and make the question of whether voters are forced to mark preferences much less important.
The Queensland government has now been in power for nine years and has totally failed to tackle the poor state of Queensland local government electoral systems. The block vote system used for undivided councils is an embarrassment, and the single-member wards used in the south east aren’t much better. Queenslanders should demand better.
And to make things even worse, the LNP has indicated it intends to move to optional preferential voting in state elections as well, if they win the state election in October.
the LNP has indicated it intends to move to optional preferential voting in state elections as well, if they win the state election in October.
“But wait… we can make it worse!” - LNP
If they do not get voted in this October, we still have every future election for years to come to worry about this happening if they manage to win.
On a side note, I didn’t even realise that the local government election was optional preferential voting. I even numbered all the boxes because that has been ingrained in me since I started voting. Learn something new everyday.
Honestly this is part of why I think it’s so important not to have OPV. Consistency is good, and the only way the state can be consistent is with CPV, because the state can’t change how general elections are done.
If they do not get voted in this October, we still have every future election for years to come to worry about this happening if they manage to win
Guess I’m never gonna vote for them then
@PetulantBandicoot @Zagorath I planned my preferences before going to vote, and the ECQ person told me to “just vote 1” on both Mayor and Ward.
I was so flabbergasted I didn’t correct them and now wonder how many people didn’t know they had an option (even though both options are on the ballots).
I put my preferences in despite being in a seat very safely in the hands of the ones I didn’t vote for.
