As I type, polling booths in South Australia are set to close at any tick of the clock. I do so from the studios of ABC Television in Adelaide, where I’ll be standing in for Antony Green, who spends the evening grappling with Tasmania’s high-maintenance electoral system. Obviously I won’t have much to offer in the way of live commentary on this site, but here’s a thread where you can call the toss as the results roll in.
South Australian election live
A thread for discussion of tonight’s South Australian election count as the results roll in.
MMP does seem like a good solution to me.
And OC – if people are voting for Libs and FF in sufficient numbers and the Libs and FF feel like close enough parties to form a government… that’s just the way things work out. If it turns out that South Australians are unhappy with how that worked out they will vote differently next time.
Given the current Federal government I don’t think anyone can be too precious about what FF might or might not do.
Swamprat, the electoral system isn’t “dishonest” as such, but it does reflect the reality that parliament is a collection of regional representatives rather than a proportional representation of the entire region.
Arguably if voting in a State parliament, for example, you would use a state-wide PR to achieve the results that you are looking at. There is a sound point of view that if a person wishes to represent the issues of a local community, then they should be running for a local council, not as a state MP!
However, keep in mind that a state-wide ballot paper is likely to be “somewhat large”, assuming that election has a relatively low threshold (say, 5%) or a modest deposit (say $2000 as per the Australian Senate).