Last week I analysed the final distribution of preferences in the NSW upper house election and thought I had detected some evidence that people were marking more preferences, but at the time we didn’t have the full dataset of preferences.
Now we do, and it’s true! Less voters are just casting a ‘1’ vote, and voters are marking more preferences on average. This increase is almost universal, with most parties seeing an increase in their preferencing rate.
The NSW Electoral Commission has published full preference data as far back as 2011. First up, this chart shows how many voters marked multiple preferences or just voted ‘1’ above the line at the last four elections.
There has been a steady decline in 'just vote 1' rates over the last two elections, now with just over 60% of voters using that option, down from 80%+ in 2011 and 2015, and I suspect similar rates in 2003 and 2007. Over one third of voters now mark multiple boxes above the line, with below the line rates fairly steady.
In my pre-election upper house preference analysis, I looked at this 1-only rate for clusters of parties on the left and right. I've updated that analysis. The left includes parties such as Legalise Cannabis, Public Education and Elizabeth Farrelly, while the right includes Lyle Shelton, the Shooters, the Liberal Democrats and One Nation.
The left had already been marking preferences at a higher rate than the right. At the 2023 election, both clusters saw increasing preference rates, but the gap between the left and the right widened in 2023.
This next chart doesn't include a historical perspective - it just looks at the rate for every group on the 2023 ballot paper.
As with the lower house, the Greens stand out head and shoulders above the rest, but they haven't always done so. In 2011, 77.7% of Greens voters just marked 1 above the line. That number is now under 36%.
There is less of a gap between the major parties than in the lower house, but that gap didn't exist at all before this year. Labor tended to have similarly high rates of just-1 voting at past elections, but this year are substantially more likely to preference.
Still, across the board there has been improvements in preferencing rates. The just-1 rate has dropped for Animal Justice, Labor, Greens, Liberal Democrats, Coalition, Sustainable Australia, One Nation and the Shooters.
One other thing of interest in the above chart: the below-the-line rate is substantially higher for the two groups who didn't have a party name and thus didn't have any cues above the line: the Bosi and Shelton groups. I've previously written about how I think we should allow some kind of identifying information - such as the name of the lead candidate - to be included above the line for independent groups. I suspect the below-the-line rate is higher because that is not on the ballot.
There is one other statistic I wanted to examine: the average number of boxes marked by above-the-line voters. This number was 1.55 in 2011, and has now climbed to 2.27.
This next chart shows that score for the parties with seats in parliament.
The parties of the left tend to be at the top of the chart, but overall the trend is upward for pretty much everyone. The one possible exception is the Coalition - their average preferences are also increasing, but not by much.
Overall I find this encouraging. This increasing usage of preferences is happening despite pretty much no official encouragement from the NSW electoral authorities, and it is happening across the board. I'm sure that part of the story is that we have now had three federal elections with a Senate voting system which is similar to New South Wales but does instruct voters to number six boxes. While that may be a factor, we are also seeing more efforts to encourage voters to mark preferences, and I suspect we will see parties on both the left and the right attempt to improve their preference rates, which will make the results more proportional.
Thanks Ben. More preference voting, and the opportunity for more proportional results sounds good. Out of interest, do you have any opinions on whether upper house voting systems or ballot papers can be improved?
Perhaps another contribution to this upper house preferences trend results from the abolition of Group Voting Tickets in most places (albeit not yet in Vic). While I have still seen some enduring confusion around GVTs recently – as I have met several people in NSW this year who thought it still existed – hopefully an even greater number of voters are becoming more aware that if you want your vote to include preferences, you have to do it yourself.
May I kindly suggest a minor correction; *fewer “…voters are just casting a ‘1’ vote”. (Fewer for countable things, less for a singular mass).
Again, thanks for all your efforts.
I too am encouraged that people are using the optional method to indicate a second option.
It’s interesting to see the mirror correlation between the ALP/Green “coalition” where clearly each is choosing the other as the second best option.
As a ‘social conservative’ and definitely not a neocon economically, nor someone with overtly libertarian (sovereign citizen) tendencies, I do find it hard to support any party with enthusiasm and undying fidelity.
Of course the fringe leftists – as well as the Greens – have nothing to offer me now that their are other disrupters such as Latham that “speak the issues that dare not speak their name.”
It is ridiculous that no major party can issue a traditional definition of woman or family without the fear of being cancelled. It’s not like the vast majority of us actively denounce these fringe (but very real) issues until the pendulum swings back into our faces…often on the hour if not each Westminster chime quarter hour!
It is easy to ignore the fact that no major party can rally 40% of the vote and that almost every government in Australia has more people opposing them (the GST/Covid principality of WA excluded).
There’s a few things I would change. The only change I would make that doesn’t require a referendum would be to have ballot instructions that encourage a larger number of above-the-line preferences ala the Senate system.
If we were putting something to a referendum, in order of difficulty:
– Change random sampling to weighted inclusive gregory.
– Remove the requirement of 15 numbers for a formal vote, thus allowing groups to just run 2 candidates.
– Remove the overlap, so all 42 members are elected at once for a 4-year term.
– Switch to a closed list system without preferences. Just mark a single party box, no below-the-line voting. Count the votes using D’Hondt or Saint-Lague.
– Switch to an open list system, where you can vote for an individual candidate if you want, and that will be used to decide which candidates are elected for each party.
Hi Ben, I would like to point out a discrepancy between your figure for the rate of preferences marked at the 2023 NSW LC election and that of Antony Green’s. Your figure says 60.88% of voters cast a single ‘1’ above the line at the 2023 NSW LC election, while Antony Green’s figure says the rate is 58.5%. https://antonygreen.com.au/increase-in-voters-showing-preferences-at-2023-nsw-legislative-council-election/ Which is the correct figure? By the way, could you please add the legend for the chart “Preferences marked at NSW LC elections, 2011-2023”? Thanks.
Thanks Joseph,
I’ve checked over my code and I think my numbers are right. I’ve flagged it with Antony. Will fix that legend too.
Comments are closed.