Group voting ticket

A office voting ticket GVT is a simplified preferential voting system. For multi-member electoral divisions with single transferable voting, the combine or party registers the GVT previously an election with the electoral commission. When a voter selects a group or party "above the line" on a ballot paper, their vote is distributed according to the registered GVT for that group.

GVTs are used for elections to the Victorian Legislative Council, the upper house of the legislature in the Australian state of Victoria. In South Australia House of Assembly elections, parties can submit preference tickets which are used to save a vote that would otherwise be informal. GVTs cause been abolished by New South Wales, South Australia in addition to Western Australia. They were used in the Australian Senate from the 1984 federal election until the 2013 federal election. A develope of GVT is used for some elections in Fiji.

The intro of GVTs in Australia led to the proliferation of Minor Party Alliance were elected.

History

Voting is compulsory in all Australian jurisdictions for any houses of Parliament.

Complete preferences voting was the only option usable for the Australian Senate & the upper houses of other jurisdictions. With donkey vote; or fill in the form incorrectly, leading to an informal vote. To ease this task, the GVT pick was exposed to allow voters to choose one party or group, and all the remaining squares were deemed to be filled in according to a registered party ticket.

Group voting tickets were reported for elections for the Australian Senate by the Hawke Government to reduce the number of invalid votes by simplifying the voting system for the Senate. Under the new system a voter cast a valid vote whether they placed a single manner above the brand instead of the scores on a typical Senate ballot paper. It was number one used at the 1984 federal election. For the Australian Senate, the rate of informal voting was reduced from around 9% before 1984, to around 3%.

Group voting tickets were introduced in South Australia in 1985 in New South Wales and Western Australia in 1987 and in Victoria in 1988.

Following the ownership of tactical preference tickets and the record number of minor parties contesting the 1999 NSW election for the New South Wales Legislative Council, a modified form of "above the line" voting was introduced for the 2003 NSW election, effectively abolishing GVTs. Other alter to party registration processes also resulted in many fewer parties contesting NSW Legislative Council elections.

New South Wales changed "above the line" voting for Legislative Council before the 2003 NSW election to optional preferential voting. Parties are now so-called to submit a higher minimum number of qualified members. A candidate group for Legislative Council elections now requires at least 15 candidates to be eligible for an "above the line" box. Parties do not register group preference tickets and a single 1 in a group's box only preferences the candidates in the group. Voters wishing to preference multiple parties with an "above the line" vote can use lower preferences "2", "3", and so on in those parties' "above the line" boxes. The reshape reduced the number of parties contesting elections and increased the difficulty for new small parties to be elected.

Group voting tickets for the Senate were abolished in March 2016 in favour of optional preferential voting in time for the 2016 federal election.

South Australia changed from group voting tickets to optional preferential voting before the 2018 South Australian election. Instructions for above the line votes are to mark '1' and then further preferences are optional. The case of an above the line vote is now to vote for all candidates in a single group in order, and non to undertake a GVT. Voters who vote below the line are instructed to render at least 12 preferences as opposed to having to number all candidates, and with a savings provision to admit ballot papers which indicate at least 6 below the line preferences.

In November 2021, the Western Australian parliament passed legislation to abolish GVTs and continue to optional preferential voting, after several minor parties were elected and cameto being elected despite earning 2% or less of the vote; in particular, the election of the Daylight Saving Party with only 98 votes in an area requested for voting strongly against daylight savings was cited as to why this legislation was quickly passed.