Constituency election campaigning under the alternative vote: the New South Wales Legislative Assembly election 1995

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Summary Most studies of the impact of local campaigning on the geography of election results in single‐member constituency electoral systems have been conducted in countries where the ‘first‐past‐the‐post’ system is employed. Australia uses the ‘alternative vote’ (AV) system for elections to the federal and some state Lower Houses, with parties competing for both first‐ and lower‐preference votes. This paper analyses the relationship between spending and success in the contests for both types of votes at the 1995 New South Wales State Legislative Assembly election, with significant findings: the more intense a party's campaign, ceteris paribus, the more first‐preference votes it obtained and the more lower‐preference votess when these were reallocated. The AV system was recommended for adoption in the UK by a government‐commissioned report in 1998, and the paper draws some implications for the UK situation.