Australia's experience with the alternative vote

Abstract

Australia's long experience with the alternative vote suggests that it is an improvement on first‐past‐the‐post voting but it too can produce perverse results. Australia is unique in its use of the alternative vote in democratic elections over a period of many decades. Preferential voting, as the alternative vote is commonly called in Australia, was introduced at the federal level in the election of 1919, having been brought into use for elections in some of the individual states before then. By the early 1960s, preferential voting in single‐member constituencies was in effect in all Australian states save Tasmania, where the single transferable vote (STV) is used. In national elections, preferential voting is used in the House of Representatives, while the Senate is elected via STV.