President Clown’s Unbeatable Logic

[Greynomad]

Dottie,

[Grandad]

NP & Jim,
TL:DR

Fair call.
I'll try to pick my game up.

Jim

[Grandad]

I may not be 100% accurate but this is my rough understanding of it, we may not have a perfect system either but it’s miles better than theirs.

Yeah, you're pretty much spot on in your understanding.
When a member of the EC votes opposite to his promise they are referred to as "Faithless Electors". It does happen.
The last time that brought the EC into the spotlight was of course 2016.

Jim

[T1 Terry]

Here is where the big "but" comes into it. The voter should mark the preference and only 1 other candidate, not 1 to 30 or what ever the field is .....

I totally agree. Only one other candidate? Yeah, ok. I'd be ok with that. I may prefer 2 or even 3 further preferences but we seem to be in agreement on the main issue.
I personally further believe these preferences should be decided by the voter. Not the party we are voting for. Thus my earlier suggestion for abolishing "How To Vote" cards. We decide. Not the party. Yes, I'm aware we can choose our own now, but how many of us actually do that? Especially when there maybe 30 of the buggers as you suggest.

the preferences from candidate 1 who doesn't get up no longer exists, the voter's second preference gets added to the tally of each candidate, maybe as a half vote? Now it becomes first past the post, a Liberal voter can add a half vote for a National Party member or vice versa, that way a vote for one party isn't automatically a vote for the other party ensuring one of the candidates gets up. Same goes for Labor and say the Greens etc ... that way we don't get that crazy thing where someone gets up because of the fall of preferential votes passed from one failed candidate to the next and they get up even though they had bugger all actual votes cast for them.
This would give genuine independents a fairer go and maybe gradually filter out the number of candidates in any one seat and better reflect who the voters really wanted ....

Now.....Terry....... I have seen you explain many very high tech and complicated issues in a manner that even I can follow. Ok, I may not understand enough to explain it to somebody else I do understand the issue on a surface understanding by the time you finish explaining it to us.

But, this last quote of yours, your skills at explaining seem to have let you down. I'm afraid you've lost me. I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Obviously, its to do with how the preferences are actually passed out. I admit I didn't totally know how this was done so I had a quick look.
Here's a quick link from the AEC that explains what is done now. https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/hor_count.htm

I can't see anything there I would not agree with, until we get to the Two Party Preferred part. That may be what you're referring to in your post.

Am I on the right track?

I'd like to understand before I comment. We may well be agreeing with each other.

Jim

I had to read all my post and all the linked information and by that time I'd passed the allowable drink count to reply
Here goes, in the example for Denison 2010, the candidate with the least votes has their votes distributed in percentages across the other candidates by how the voter marked their ballot paper. This works fine for those that selected to mark every box below the line, but for those who marked above the line, the candidate gets to choose how their votes are distributed (well that is the way I understand it anyway)
My suggestion is a single preference marked by the voter, all the votes and half votes counted in the first count, the one with the most votes wins because they must have had the support of the majority of voters .... does that make sense? Maybe a recount can be called if there isn't a clear 1% or more of the total vote between the highest and second highest candidate vote, but that must be called for by the candidate with a certain time. If there is no clear winner still, that electorate must vote again ..... unlikely those who received minimal votes and those who cast an informal vote by accident will do the whole thing again, so far more likely a clear winner will be seen the second time around. At the next election, voters might be a bit more discerning where they place their mark to avoid having to vote twice again ......

T1 Terry

[bob r]

Gotta agree with you Bruce
Why send them over there with guns if they carn't use umm.

Bob

[native pepper]

Bruce, what perplexes me is all these accusations are being put forward by those who wouldn't have a clue as to what active service is really like, never served their country and to cowardly to do anything but collect their pay packets and moan. The airy fairy PC crowd are behind all this ridiculous alarmist bullshit, just put them in the same place as all on active service and see how they handle being confronted by hostile populations and insurgents.

The ones who should be held responsible for these clearly wrong actions, are all the politicians like Howard and Co who voted to sent our defence forces to a number of war zones on false premises and lies. We should never be in conflict zones outside our own world area, which to me means the southern hemisphere, Sth E Asia, Pacific and we need to develop our defence forces to be able to capably repel and form of attack on Aus. Sadly our political system is to incompetent to do anything but wave their delusional ideological flags and babble rubbish.

[jon_d]

"southern hemisphere"
A very arbitrary idea NP. What about hemispheres separated vertically? Or tilted?

And then, what about when we need (will need) some help from others over China?

[Izabarack]

If there is no clear winner still, that electorate must vote again ..... unlikely those who received minimal votes and those who cast an informal vote by accident will do the whole thing again, so far more likely a clear winner will be seen the second time around.

A minor variation of this is used in some countries, mostly for Presidential and Head of State elections. If multiple candidates, a First-past-the-Post election is run but the winner must gather more than 50% of the votes to be confirmed. If less than 50%, a run off election between the top two is called. I like this method because it is devoid of opportunities for preference deals. Such a method would be useful in Aust Senate elections as none of the current fools and dunces from the minor and fringe parties would get a seat.

Iza

[Izabarack]

....all these accusations are being put forward by those who wouldn't have a clue as to what active service is really like, never served their country and to cowardly to do anything but collect their pay packets and moan.

Actually, all the reports of war crime level behaviour have come from serving and ex-serving defence force members members.

Iza

[T1 Terry]

Too complicated!!
I prefer the Russian style .... stay in power with guns & poisons!!!
I gotta laugh at the present mess in the Army.
Gov send the troops in to kill, then charge them with murder! The Gov gets off free.
Gotta ask yourself if it was you over there & you saw the enemy shoot 2 of your mates would you shake their hands?

But then, what about our own state soldiers, the police, they have a member shot. Do they get the right to beat and eventually kill, or just kill out right, anyone they believe could have been involved, or of the same race, or just someone they think would be better off dead?
There has to be some sort of rules, mass slaughter would be the result if there wasn't, a long stretch of the bow I know, but what if China wanted control of Australia so they can grow or dig up anything they wanted, a quick squirt of a deadly virus over the populated areas, wipe out the locals, then inoculate their people against the disease, walk in, spread more of it around if needed and raise the flag?
I agree about the govt getting off free is wrong, same for those further up the command chain, everyone from the grunt who did the dirt work up has to share the responsibility and punishment for letting such a thing go on for so long, that is where the real crime is based, knowing it was happening and not only doing something about it, but covering it up for so long .....

T1 Terry