Still no time to graph electoral preference flows this year, and very doubtful I'll manage before Saturday. Has anyone else bothered to look into these?

The SA Senate candidates 2010 graph seems to show four blocs: left, right, fringe and way-out.

42 candidates, 19 groups, competing for 6 seats. Only first preferences are shown there; there must be a better way to convey what might happen when lower preferences are consumed.

http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/guide/qa.htm

Will you be setting up Senate Calculators for this election?
Yes.Nominations close at noon on Thurday 19 July, with the release of names and ballot draw after noon on Friday. Names will be released to the media on Friday afternoon and I will have them all up on this website by early evening.

( Read more... )

On a chance visit to Auntie's web site, I trip over David Horton's "Bring out your dead". He advocates increased penalties for failing to show up on Election Day, restoring voting rights for prisoners, and allowing children, unborn foetuses and the dead to have the chance to have their say.

It's a bad day to be a bum in the Tiergarten here today.

The helicopters are out, swathes of the park are closed off, the dog squad is out looking behind (literally) every tree, and the town is crawling with hundreds of cops. Many of these seem to be from out of town, and it's nice to see police in blue. The Berliner khaki looks so paramilitary to

US Senator Barack Obama is in town. I can hear the helicopters from my office here. May wander down to see if I can find a photo or two later.

Meanwhile, AP's headline is: "Obama in Europe in effort to burnish foreign cache"

Oops. What's in the cache exactly?

For those still paying attention: the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Inquiry into the 2007 Federal Election received 156 submissions.

The Australian Democrats claim

British voters can decide key seats ( Read more... )

Dear Non-Australians,

Are citizens of your country entitled to vote when they live, long-term, outside your country? Should they be? I believe this is true for US citizens, regardless of how long ago they left the US, but I'd like to be corrected if I'm wrong. What about for UK citizens?

[Background: The Australian Parliament's Joint Standing ( Read more... )

This morning the German news bugs me. Important Media Experts are expounding on the supreme importance of the Iowa caucuses. They laugh at the incongruity of a small farming region having a disproportionate impact on the fate of the free world as we know it. They attempt to compare this to a village here holding an election which results in ( Read more... )

Australia has a complicated preferential voting system for electing its Senate. ( If you're not voting in SA
later this month, skip here. )