Australian Senate vote-counting-ware contract a complete shambles The Australian Electoral Commission's (AEC's) handling of the nation's 2016 election was deeply flawed, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found. The auditor's investigation was kicked off after the 2016 double-dissolution election, which introduced at short notice optional preferential voting for Australia's …
I have scruitineered for the lower house, and it is clear and simple.
But nobody understands the senate system. It needs to be simple enough that, like the reps, it can be counted by hand in front of scrutineers.
We do not want the US style system here, where we have to trust our democracy to whoever programs and controls the computers.
This is not unimportant.
So they are paying for an electronic vote counting system to count votes 'er' checked by hand because why? The people checking the votes can't count or they can't but if they can't how can they check.
They paid millions for this, why? Computers, a spreadsheet and a computer network already there sitting idle, they could have even done it with pen and paper and an abacus.
Did someone spend 6 million just to spend 6 million and because nothing was in place, they pretended to do stuff really cheap as a show and it all fell apart.
Because the Australian Senate voting rules are simple in principle and complex in execution.
You get a ballot paper with 100+ names on it, which you number 1, 2, 3, ... until you are exhausted.
To get a senate seat, you need to have a quota of preferences. Once you reach the quota, the "excess" votes are distributed to second preferences. But, since anybody could have made up the quota, the excess votes are distributed on a pro-rata basis to the second preferences.
Next senate seat, preferences are re-distributed again, with people who have exhausted their first and second preferences distributed to third preferences. Again on a pro-rata basis.
Easy enough for the first couple of seats. Now do it 76 times.
Still want to do it on an abacus?
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