Today, in Australia, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters reported to the Parliament with its recommendations. As well as agreeing that we must proceed with the proposed reform to make Senate voting ‘above the line’ more democratic, the committee also called for ‘below the line preferential voting’ reform.
On March 2 the government agreed to support this reform.
While http://belowtheline.org.au/ has been extremely helpful in assisting those of us who really want to know where our vote's going, this is going to appeal to the other 97% who find the below the line tablecloth ballot paper too much. 12 boxes aren't so much.
http://belowtheline.org.au
Excellent news indeed. Combined with the removal of the GVTs it's also likely to see a significant reduction in the size of the ballot papers.
ReplyDeleteWithout the ability to actively control ATL preferences most of the incentives for microparties are removed.