‘Two‐party preferred’: The analysis of voting figures under preferential voting

Since the Commonwealth Electoral Commission is issuing full distribution of the preferences of votes for minor candidates at elections for the House of Representatives, it is now possible to assess the use of these and compare them with previous estimates. This paper therefore looks at the concept of the ‘two‐party preferred vote’ in the light of such publication and the introduction of optional preferential voting in New South Wales.     

Stability and change at commonwealth elections, 1910–69: A test of the conventional wisdom

This article investigates and revises the conventional wisdom about aggregate‐level electoral change at Commonwealth elections. Unlike previous Australian analyses, it distinguishes temporary from permanent change and uniform from heterogeneous change. It also formulates rival hypotheses about the extent, timing and source of such change, and it tests them with a new source of data. It shows, in sharp contrast to the conventional wisdom, that significant aggregate‐level change occurred at virtually every election between 1910 and 1969. In so doing it directs attention to the infrequent but pivotal influence of voters upon the scope and direction of public policy in Australia.     

Under what conditions do ethnic minority candidates attract the ethnic minority vote? How neighbourhood and candidate characteristics affected ethnic affinity voting in the Dutch 2017 parliamentary elections

Ethnic affinity voting is the term for when political party candidates with an ethnic minority background receive a larger share of the vote in ethnically dense neighbourhoods. This study is one of the first to provide a detailed test for ethnic affinity voting during a national election in an open-list proportional representation system, with the same ballots in every polling station. It tests the conditions under which ethnic affinity voting is greater, studying the proportion of votes for ethnic minority candidates at neighbourhood level in the Netherlands in 2017, when a minority-interest party entered parliament and the traditional ethnic vote for the social democratic party (PvdA) imploded. This study disentangles party and candidate effects and finds evidence for (general and specific) ethnic affinity voting at candidate level. Even though ethnic minority candidates attract fewer votes, they perform better in neighbourhoods where more minorities live, especially when the group size of co-ethnics is larger. Ethnic affinity effects are relatively strong for candidates affiliated with minority-oriented and left-wing parties, and absent or negative for ethnic candidates of right-wing parties. Moreover, whether male or female ethnic candidates are more likely to attract the ethnic vote also depends on the ethnic background and party affiliation of the candidate.     

The 1984 Australian elections: Find the women?

There was a record number of women candidates in the 1984 Federal Elections. 105 (25%) ran for the House of Representatives enlarged from 124 seats to 148. 53 (25%) ran for the 48 positions at the half Senate Elections. This resulted in increased representation for women, with 2 new MHRs (including one who moved from the Senate) and after some musical chairs one extra Senator.⁽¹⁾ These were not the numbers predicted by some politicians and commentators on the eve of the December Elections and the increase was certainly not in proportion to the greater number of candidates and seats, taking 1983 as the base year.⁽²⁾     

Compulsory voting,turnout and party advantage in Australia∗

Who votes or does not vote in a voluntary system has long been thought to have distinct benefits for different political parties. High turnout has been seen as aiding parties of the left, low turnout parties of the right. Although Australia has a compulsory system of voting, this paper shows tha there are still party advantages and disadvantages associated with the 5 percent of the eligible electorate who fail to vote. When turnout is high, Labor makes a net gain in votes, and when turnout is low, the Liberal‐National coalition benefit. Making estimates of nonvoting in Britain and applying them to Australia indicates that this pattern would persist if voluntary voting were applied to Australia, giving the Liberal‐National coalition an inbuilt advantage.     

Does compulsory voting violate a right not to vote?

It is sometimes claimed that compulsory voting violates a particular right not to vote. For some, this assumed right is as fundamental as the right to vote. The existence of such a right, however, has attracted little sustained scholarly attention. This article explores from a political theory perspective whether the alleged ‘right not to vote’ is deserving the same legal and moral protection as the right to vote. I argue on two broad grounds that it is not. First, not all rights are capable of being legally waived and voting is one of them. Second, voting is a right but it is also a duty; it is a duty-right. Therefore, even though many people do fail to vote, doing so does not seem to constitute the exercise of any particular right, nor should it be legally recognised as such.

有人认为强制性投票侵犯了不投票的权利。对于很多人来说,不投票的权利跟投票的权利同等重要。不过这种权利却未得到学术界的持续关注。本文从政治学的角度探讨了所谓的“不投票权”是否应像投票权一样享有法律上和道德上的保护。笔者基于更宽泛的理由认为不应当。首先,并非所有权利都是可以在法律上免除的,投票权即是。其次,投票是权利,也是义务;是权利—义务。所以,尽管许多人没有投票,但这并不构成某种权利,法律上也不应被视作权利。     

Class,ethnicity, and voting behaviour in Australia∗

This paper assesses the importance of a range of social structural influences on Australian electoral behaviour, with specific reference to ethnicity and occupational class. The analysis is conducted on two levels. Firstly, aggregate level data is employed, using the 1976 census matched by federal electorate to the 1977 election results. Techniques from factorial ecology are used to construct conceptually unambiguous measures of constituency characteristics, and these are related to voting behaviour using multivariate techniques. Secondly, individual level survey data collected in 1979 are used to confirm the importance of the socioeconomic cleavage and urban‐rural divisions. They also indicate that ethnicity has an appreciable influence on electoral behaviour among those born in Mediterranean countries. Northern Europeans (mainly British) prove to be no different in their electoral behaviour than native‐born Australians, while the results for Eastern Europeans are inconclusive.     

The global spread of preferential voting: Australian institutional imperialism?

In recent years, a number of countries have adopted versions of the ‘Australian’ electoral system of preferential voting for both national and sub‐national elections. This article examines the diffusion of preferential voting systems around the world. It distinguishes between various types of preferential voting manifested in both majoritarian (eg alternative vote) and proportional (eg single transferable vote) contexts. It then examines the empirical record of the adoption of preferential voting in Europe, North America and the Pacific, identifying three ways in which the ‘Australian’ system has been transferred to other countries, via colonial transplanting, international imitation, and normative appeal. While the first two approaches have been traditionally influential, in recent years the normative appeal of preferential voting systems has become paramount. This is in part because of the globalisation of electoral assistance, which has provided an important opportunity for the diffusion of what have been, until recently, distinctively ‘Australian’ electoral procedures.     

The Partito Democratico after the 2013 elections: all change?

This article analyzes the changes that occurred within the Partito Democratico (PD, Democratic Party) from the fiasco of the general election in February 2013 until the European elections in May 2014, focusing in particular on the extent to which the presence of a new, distinctive type of leadership has contributed to such transformations. The first section describes the most relevant events affecting the party in the period considered, such as the failure to gain a parliamentary majority, the problematic re-election of Giorgio Napolitano as President of the Italian Republic, the transition from Pier Luigi Bersani to Matteo Renzi as party leader, and the transition from Enrico Letta to Renzi as Prime Minister. The following sections deal with questions of renewal in the party's organization, with an emphasis on the key role played by Matteo Renzi as the new leader. To achieve its goal and explain how the PD has changed in recent months, the article resorts to the well-known framework of the three party faces proposed by Katz and Mair.     

“If voting could change anything it would be illegal”∗

Colin Crouch (ed.), Participation in Politics, British Political Sociology Yearbook, Vol. 3, Groom Helm, London, 1977; $38.50.     

Yellow fever? The political geography of Liberal voting in Great Britain

The rise of the Labour Party after World War I forced the Liberal Party in Britain back into the nonconformist and remote ‘Celtic Fringe’, where local identity and religion rather than class remained the dominant political cleavages. The party has struggled to break out of these Liberal ‘heartlands’ ever since. However, in the 1997 General Election the Liberal Democrats won a total of 46 constituencies, their best result since 1929, despite a fall in their national share of the vote. While historical voting patterns and the level of religious nonconformity can help explain the success in the traditional heartlands seats we must turn to contemporary reasons for why the party were able to make gains in areas of historical weakness. Bridging the credibility gap through success at the local level or in by-elections has been particularly vital for the party. Building on the understanding gained from qualitative interviews with the party elite and case studies in key constituencies, we analyze the basis of Liberal Democrat support in 1997. Models that include data on historical patterns, demographics and the local political context are found to be particularly successful in explaining the party’s support.     

Who votes alone? The impact of voting by mail on political discussion

Critics of voting by mail express concern over its impact on civil society. For example, Thompson (2004) posits that voting by mail limits electoral civic engagement by preventing the temporal norm of simultaneity on Election Day. I, however, find that the open ballot system of voting by mail promotes deliberation, which encourages civic engagement. This study tests if voting by mail increases political discussion by creating a Poisson regression model of American National Election Survey data. The findings show that voting by mail leads to more political discussion. This evidence supports the theory that voting by mail offers voters a more open and deliberatory system and does not necessarily limit civic engagement.     

Red rural,blue rural? Presidential voting patterns in a changing rural America

This paper examines individual and aggregate data to document the growing political diversity in rural America. This political diversity is evident in the various economies within rural America. The new rural economy is reflected in recreational counties, where natural and built amenities combined with the provision of services to residents and visitors are the basis for the local economy. Residents of recreational counties tend to be more liberal than their rural peers on a variety of political issues, and supported Barack Obama at significantly higher levels in 2008 and 2012. In contrast, in regions dominated by the old rural economy of farming, political views are more conservative and there is far less support for Democrats in general and President Obama in particular. An analysis of survey data combined with multivariate spatial regression analysis demonstrates that these differences between the old and new rural economy persist even when a variety of demographic, economic, social and geographic variables are controlled.     

The Italian political system after the 9 – 10 April 2006 elections

Abstract

All recent Italian elections have produced important electoral consequences. In this brief introduction, the author highlights some of the problems, difficulties and perspectives for the Italian political system following the electoral victory of the centre-left. More precisely, he suggests that there are two complex issues in need of being analyzed and politically tackled: the revisions to be introduced into the Italian Constitution and the transformation of some Italian parties and the reorganization of the party system. In conclusion, at least in this phase, the Italian political system is bound to remain in a situation that can still be defined as an ongoing political and institutional transition.     

The last laugh: Western Australia's elections and the executive state, 1983–89

Aside from bribery and corruption associated with the police and organized ‘vice and crime’, Mr Tony Fitzgerald Q.C. highlighted in his ‘Report’ five criteria as areas of concern over the health and future of parliamentary democracy in Queensland. They were: 1. Decline of Parliament in terms of (a) sitting hours, and (b) consistent refusal by the Premier and Ministers to answer parliamentary questions and to be fully accountable and responsible to Parliament for public expenditures, ministerial expenses and extra‐parliamentary executive decisions; 2. Business deals, joint ventures and other financial transactions between government, its agencies and government favourites; 3. Lavish funding of the governing political party by recipients of its favours; 4. Political ‘stacking’ of the public service; 5. Use of taxpayers’ funds by Premier and Ministers to finance writs against critics.     

Torres Strait elections, 2000 and 2004: Changes in political leadership and style?

Torres Strait has 18 local governments, elections for which were held in March of both 2000 and 2004 in conjunction with other local government elections in Queensland. Elections were also held at these times for additional positions on two regional representative bodies for Torres Strait, the Island Co-ordinating Council and the Torres Strait Regional Authority. This paper examines all these elections, focusing on changes in political leadership and also a possible emerging change in political style in Torres Strait.