How to elect a head of state

Submitted by LJ Holden on 18 September, 2011 - 22:10

There's a referendum at this years general election on the voting system we use to elect our parliament. Electoral systems are very much in the spotlight at the moment. While not directly related, the recent presidential election in Singapore (a fellow member of the Commonwealth, and also one of the many republics in the Commonwealth) demonstrates the issues with electing a single-winner office using first past the post, the voting system we used to elect our parliament until 1996.


The winning candidate received 35.2% of the vote, while the second place received 34.85% of the vote. One model under Keith Locke's Head of State Referenda Bill was direct election of the head of state using STV, or single transferable vote. This would've avoided the issue of having a "winner" with just 35% of the vote. Another alternative is PV or preferential voting, which the Australians use to elect their parliament.

Comments

SES's picture
Submitted by SES on 24 September, 2011 - 21:10.

If there's just a single person being elected, then STV and the electoral system used for the Australian House of Representatives are actually the same thing. (It doesn't really make sense to call it STV in that case. If there's only one office, then there's nothing to transfer.)

LJ Holden's picture
Submitted by LJ Holden on 24 September, 2011 - 22:40.

True, it's not really STV when there's only one office to win... we used the PV video from the electoral commission to explain how the system works.

Chair, Republican Movement - contact me online or call on +64 27 699 1350

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