In local government and upper house elections here we usually have a lot of candidates. I was scrutineering for one election where the ballot paper was about a metre wide.
And when you have (say) 100 candidates to fill 20 seats, the final result can take weeks and is a bit of a crapshoot.
The first dozen or so elected are generally pretty obvious - they represent the big parties or are personally popular. It's when you get down to the second-string candidates of the big parties and the independents and the wackos that it all gets wildly exciting.
The system varies in details, but by and large if a candidate gets a surplus of votes, then the extra votes are transferred to the next candidate on the voter's ranking list. Sometimes they are transferred at full value, sometimes all the votes are discounted by a percentage "used", sometimes the voting officials take a "sample".
So votes flow down from the top and they generally (though by no means always) flow down along party lines.
When you get to the stage where there are candidates remaining who don't have a "quota" (50% of the votes plus one for a one seat election, 33.3% for two seats, 10% for 9 seats and so on), then the candidate with the lowest total is eliminated and their votes restributed according to the rankings, until all the seats are filled. It's a complex job, but it pretty much reflects community choices.
For example, we only have six States, and each State has twelve Senators, half of whom come up for election every three years. So you only need 14% of the vote to get elected for a six year term, and that means we generally get a number of minor party and independent Senators, who hold what is called "the balance of power" between the two major parties on the occasions when the majors choose to vote different ways, which they frequently do.
So folk like the Greens can have a significant voice in Parliament. They might never get to form a government, but they can have an impact, sometimes a crucial impact. The Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine at one stage held the sole say over whether or not a major tax reform package was passed.
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And when you have (say) 100 candidates to fill 20 seats, the final result can take weeks and is a bit of a crapshoot.
The first dozen or so elected are generally pretty obvious - they represent the big parties or are personally popular. It's when you get down to the second-string candidates of the big parties and the independents and the wackos that it all gets wildly exciting.
The system varies in details, but by and large if a candidate gets a surplus of votes, then the extra votes are transferred to the next candidate on the voter's ranking list. Sometimes they are transferred at full value, sometimes all the votes are discounted by a percentage "used", sometimes the voting officials take a "sample".
So votes flow down from the top and they generally (though by no means always) flow down along party lines.
When you get to the stage where there are candidates remaining who don't have a "quota" (50% of the votes plus one for a one seat election, 33.3% for two seats, 10% for 9 seats and so on), then the candidate with the lowest total is eliminated and their votes restributed according to the rankings, until all the seats are filled. It's a complex job, but it pretty much reflects community choices.
For example, we only have six States, and each State has twelve Senators, half of whom come up for election every three years. So you only need 14% of the vote to get elected for a six year term, and that means we generally get a number of minor party and independent Senators, who hold what is called "the balance of power" between the two major parties on the occasions when the majors choose to vote different ways, which they frequently do.
So folk like the Greens can have a significant voice in Parliament. They might never get to form a government, but they can have an impact, sometimes a crucial impact. The Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine at one stage held the sole say over whether or not a major tax reform package was passed.