Welcome to Neither!

Who will you vote for in the coming Federal Election?

Tweedledum? Or Tweedledee?

 contact us: voteneither@gmail.com

Perhaps you think you'll vote for someone else?  If so forget it.  No matter who you think you are voting for in the coming election for the House of Representatives , your vote will end up going to  either the ALP or the Liberals  (Tweedledum and Tweedledee).

 

 

 

Voting "1' for a minority party candidate and placing the Tweedles last and second last  on your ballot paper will not keep your vote from going to one of the Tweedles. Once that minority candidate has been eliminated from the count, your vote will be passed on to the candidate to whom you gave your second preference  - and so on -  until it reaches the candidate you placed second last. It will then be treated as a vote for that candidate.

 

 

(If this sounds unclear, click here for a more detailed  explanation of how votes for the House of Representatives are counted).
 

The fundamental principle of a free election is that voters get to give their votes to the candidates they support.  An electoral system  which requires voters to give their votes to candidates that they reject, is a direct violation of this.  Yet that is the situation we have here in Australia.  The legislation governing elections tells us that we are not allowed to cast a valid vote for the candidate of our choice without also voting for candidates that we do not choose. (It's rather akin to the illegal trade practice of "bundling"!)

 

During the  1996 election period, Albert Langer was jailed for  explaining  to people that they could avoid this by placing the two major parties equal last on their ballot paper (this became known as the 1,2,3.3 method).  At that time a vote of this nature  was a formal (ie valid) vote.  You could stop your vote being passed on to either of the Tweedles by placing them equal last on your ballot paper.  However it  was  illegal  to  advocate 

this method of voting. 

 

Following the 1996 election and the huge outcry over Langer's jailing which accompanied it, the electoral legislation was amended to  make votes of this nature informal (invalid). There is now no way that we can vote only for the candidates that we support.

Click here for a full account of the 1996 election and the Langer jailing.

When sentencing Langer in February 1996,  Justice Beach had this to say:

 

"To face the voter with a list of names , none of whom he may like or really want to represent him and ask him to indicate a preference amongst them does not present him with a task he cannot perform"

 

That about sums it up!!  At every election we are required to trudge to the polls and "choose" between candidates we may not really want to represent us.  For those of us who have a slight preference for one Tweedle over the other, the task may not be too onerous. But for the growing minority of us who would not voluntarily choose either, it's a task while possible for us to "perform", has nothing in common with a free election.

The clear beneficiaries of  this  are  the  two major  parties.   After every election they can announce that around 45% of votes went to one party and around 55% to the other.  They are in complete collusion with respect to maintaining this power sharing arrangement between them.

By forcing us to cast a "preference" for every candidate on the ballot paper it is a foregone conclusion that one  or  the other of them  will receive a clear majority of votes in each electorate.  They know that allowing us to vote only for the candidates that we positively support would create the possibility that in some electorates neither major party would receive the absolute majority of votes required for their candidate to be elected.

Such an inconclusive outcome would not only  force the calling of  supplementary elections in those electorates  but at the same time, reveal the true level of dissatisfaction with them and kick start an enthusiasm for establishing new parties. 

The maintenance of the current electoral legislation keeps the system closed.

VOTE INFORMAL

The only way to challenge this situation at present is to deliberately cast an informal vote.  The number of informal votes is reported after each election and is therefore one way we can express our contempt for both parties.

The minor  parties don't deserve even the (token) support of being given your first preference (s).

They participate in the whole charade.  Election after election they  run candidates who won't be elected and urge you to vote for them without making it clear what will really happen to your vote.  Their reward for doing this is a financial incentive (bribe) in the form of a payment from the Commonwealth based on the number of primary votes their candidates receive. If a candidate receives at least 4% of first preferences  he/she  is paid $2 per vote.

Having these minor parties participate in each election helps maintain  the illusion that we have  a real multi-party system. The two major parties benefit enormously from their willingness to participate because it  provides them with a convenient safety valve.   People can "express" their dissatisfaction with  them by voting '1' for a minor party but the Tweedles don't actually have to lose any votes in the process.

If  these minor parties had any real interest in changing things they would refuse to play the game.  Imagine the outcome if they took a real stand and either refused to run, or called on their supporters to disobey the requirement to cast a preference for every candidate on the ballot paper? This would result in a huge and very noticiable rise in the number of informal votes which would have the effect of seriously undermining the system. But the current bunch of minor parties is too gutless to do this. They prefer to play the game and collect their money afterwards (following the last election the Greens received over 3 million dollars). None of the minor parties is seriously in it to win. They are no more than bit-players in the whole charade.

The (tired old) "lesser of two evils" argument

"I really do hate then both, but tweedledum is a bit less evil than tweedledee", so I'll vote for tweedledum"

The majority of Australian voters will give their first preference  to either the ALP or the Liberals.  The argument here is not directed at these people but at the hypocrisy of those who say that they dislike both parties but then  allow their vote to go to one of them anyway.

This is a profoundly dishonest stance.  If you plan to cast a  formal vote for a minor party while putting tweedledum second last and tweedledee last,  then you should be prepared to admit that  logically speaking you support tweedledum.  Because that's what you'll be doing.  You may try to rationalize it  by arguing that of course you would "prefer" an electoral system which did not force you to choose between two evils, but given that we don't have that,  the only thing you can do is to try to keep the "most evil" party out of power by casting a formal vote which will go to the "less evil party".   But that is a real cop out. The reason we are stuck with a system in which our only option is to "choose" between two evils, is that people go along with it.  It counts for nothing that you would prefer it were otherwise.

 

There are some minor policy differences between the two major parties but none of these is great  enough to  over-ride either their similarities, or more importantly the fact that elections here are governed by legislation which interferes with our freedom to vote only for candidates that we support. 

This is why there has  been no serious political debate. People are just not that interested when the result is bound to be a clear victory for either Tweedledum or Tweedledee.  Anticipation of the outcome of the AFL Grand Final generates dramatically more excitement than anticipation of the results of a Federal Election!

 

 

 

Don't vote for  the  lizards!

 ‘On (the robot’s) world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.’”

‘Odd,’ said Arthur, ‘I thought you said it was a democracy.’

‘I did,’ said Ford, ‘It is.'

‘So,’ said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, ‘why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?’

‘It honestly doesn’t occur to them,’ said Ford. ‘They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.’

‘You mean they actually vote for the lizards?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Ford with a shrug, ‘of course.’
‘
But,’ said Arthur, going for the big one again, ‘why?’

‘Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,’ said Ford, ‘the wrong lizard might get in’”

Douglas Adams -  "So Long and Thanks for all the  Fish"