Election Resources on the Internet: Federal Elections in Australia

The Australian House of Representatives is currently composed of 150 members chosen in single-member electoral divisions with approximately equal numbers of electors, using the full preferential version of the Alternative Vote (AV) system.

For the 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013 federal elections, House of Representatives seats were distributed among the states and territories in the following manner:

State/Territory	Seats

	2004	2007	2010 2013

New South Wales	50	49	48
Victoria	37	37	37
Queensland	28	29	30
South Australia	11	11	11
Western Australia	15	15	15
Tasmania	5	5	5
Northern Territory	2	2	2
Australian Capital Territory	2	2	2

Total	150	150	150

To cast a formal (that is, valid) ballot under full preferential AV, voters must rank all the candidates in order of preference. A candidate who receives an absolute majority (50% + 1) of the formal first preference votes cast in a division is immediately elected. Otherwise, the candidate polling the smallest number of votes in the division is eliminated, and the votes obtained by the eliminated candidate are transferred to the remaining candidates according to the preferences on the ballot. The process is repeated until one candidate secures an absolute majority of the formal votes. Nonetheless, the distribution of preferences is carried out in all divisions, including those where a candidate has obtained an absolute majority of first preference votes. The result of the full distribution of preferences is used to calculate the two-party preferred vote between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Liberal-National Coalition.

To illustrate the functioning of AV, the results of the November 2001 general election in the state of Victoria division of Melbourne Ports are presented here in detail. Candidates from five parties - the Australian Democrats, the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia, the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Greens and the Liberal Party of Australia - contested this suburban Melbourne seat, with the following results:

Count	Greg Chipp (AD)		Jeremy Beck (CEC)		Michael Danby (ALP)		Jeannette Kavanagh (GRN)		Andrew McLorinan (LIB)

	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%

First	7,328	9.3	305	0.4	31,110	39.4	8,912	11.3	31,384	39.7
	+100		Excluded		+60		+92		+53

Second	7,428	9.4			31,170	39.4	9,004	11.4	31,437	39.8
	Excluded				+2,022		+4,452		+954

Third					33,192	42.0	13,456	17.0	32,391	41.0
					+10,826		Excluded		+2,630

Fourth					44,018	55.7			35,021	44.3
					Elected

Since no candidate obtained an absolute majority of first preference votes, the candidate with the least votes was eliminated on the first count, and his votes were transferred to the remaining candidates. The process was repeated on the second and third counts, until one candidate - the ALP's Michael Danby - obtained an absolute majority of votes on the fourth and final count. With an overwhelming majority (80.5%) of minor party preferences, Danby won the seat despite polling slightly fewer first preference votes than Andrew McLorinan, the Liberal candidate.

Because AV allows voters to give their first preference to a minor party with little or no possibility of victory, and then use their second (and lower) preferences to support one major party candidate or the other, minor parties can significantly influence the outcome of an election when neither of the two major political groups has an absolute majority, as shown by the results of the 2001 federal election in Melbourne Ports.

Nonetheless, AV is a majoritarian electoral system that - like the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system - favors larger parties at the expense of smaller groups. It is difficult for minor parties to secure representation in the House under AV,unless their support is regionally concentrated; even then, the AV absolute majority requirement presents an additional hurdle that smaller parties have to overcome in order to win House seats. In fact, minor party victories in House elections have been few and far between: save for the occasional success of one or more independent candidates, nearly all seats in the House of Representatives are won by either the ALP or the Coalition.

Under AV, Australia has developed a party system dominated by two major groups, with a number of smaller parties with significant electoral support, yet largely excluded from the House of Representatives - but not from the Senate, where the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system provides minor parties far greater opportunities to attain parliamentary representation.