A preliminary study of Australia's Election system and how the Prime Minister of Australia came into being

By introducing Australia's electoral system today, you will know that the election of Australia's prime minister is sometimes not entirely the will of Australian voters.

Having been through local elections while working in Australia is interesting and regular. Although Australia's electoral system is generally a model of the Western electoral system, this model is somewhat specific.

First of all, it is consistent with most electoral systems in the West, because it is relatively simple.

First, all Australian citizens, both men and women, aged 18 and living in Australia for more than half a year, are eligible to vote. The candidate asked for residence for more than three years.

Second, direct elections, one person, one vote, can not entrust, not like the United States has to go through the electoral and electoral college system. It is important to note that Australia's deputies and senators are directly elected, except that the number of deputies is determined by the proportion of the population of the states. In general, there is an average of one representative for every 80,000 or so people. Those who won more votes were elected. The number of senators is fixed, six in the states, two in the Northern Territory and two in the Capital Territory. According to the proportion of votes obtained by candidates from each party, they are distributed among the parties participating in the election, which means that those who have won more votes are not necessarily elected as senators, but also depending on whether or not your party is allocated enough seats.

Third, the secret election, in order to ensure the confidentiality of the vote, no one can publicly state his vote, nor can the media and other organizations with the right to speak can make public the voting choices of anyone. In elections, voters write their votes in secret between them, and vote on secret ballots. It is worth mentioning that Australian scholars believe that the secret voting system was created by Australia, so they call it the "Australian voting system".

The mandatory principle is simple, that is, if you reach the age of 18, you must register with the local election commission, and you must register on your own initiative, and any changes in your personal information must also be declared on your own initiative. Registered voters are required to vote, and those who do not vote for no reason will be fined A $20 (I wonder if there is any adjustment now). Refusal to pay a fine will be prosecuted. So this mandatory principle guarantees a fairly high turnout rate in Australia, which should be the highest in the West.

More complex is the principle of priority. This is quite unique in the western electoral system. Priority is called "preferential ballot system" in English and can also be translated into a priority vote. I really had a lot of trouble trying to figure out the electoral system.

On the ballot papers in Australia, the names of all candidates are listed in alphabetical order, and voters choose not to tick on the ballot paper but to write the serial number on the ballot paper according to their personal preferences. For example, there are six candidates in a constituency in New South Wales, where Sydney is located, A, B, C, D, E, F. Choose a member from among the six, not just one of the six. You have to mark 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 before the names of the six, depending on the degree of preference you have to give them one, two, three, four, five, six. For example: a 3, B 5, C 1, D 4, E 6, F 2. In other words, you most want C to be elected, followed by F, and then A, and so on, D, B, and finally E. This is the meaning of the priority vote.

When counting votes, the principle of transfer counting is adopted, that is, instant runoff voting and transferable counting (, or transferable distribution). This is more complicated.

In counting the votes, it is up to more than half of the voters in this round to see if there are candidates, that is, whether or not they get more than half of the votes in the "1" round. If so, then this one is elected. If not, count the least number of "1" votes. For example, the constituency has 30,000 votes, C gets 40 percent of the "1" vote, or 12000 votes, and F gets 35 percent of the votes, 10500 votes. And E got the least number of tickets, only 10%, or 3000. Then E was eliminated in the first round of counting. And choosing E as the preferred vote is not invalidated, depending on who their second choice is. If 1000 of the 3000 votes for E were to make C the second option, the 1000 votes would have to be added to C's name. If C got 12000 votes in the first round, he would have 13000 votes. The rest chose F as the second choice, and the remaining 2000 votes were counted in F's name, so that F had 12500 votes, less than half of them, and then eliminated one more candidate. Candidate B, who received 20 percent of the votes, or 6000 votes, 1000 of them chose C as the second option and another 5000 with the F as the second option, adding up to 14000 votes for C and 17500 votes for F. And so on, the final result may be that C, who leads in the first round of votes, did not get more than half of the votes in the first round. Instead, F took the lead in getting more than 30,000 votes, so, Although C was in the lead in the first round of counting, he could not be elected, on the contrary, F was elected.

This is the most complex and special part of the Australian election. This means that the elected person may not be the favorite and trusted person of the majority of voters, it may be a balanced product. Some argue that the system is more in line with most preferences, while others argue that it does not really reflect the will of voters.

This is only a matter of election. This election is for members representing all parties, not prime ministers.

Australia is a parliamentary cabinet, that is, the cabinet is made up of political parties that have a majority in parliament, and as chief cabinet: the prime minister, naturally comes from the majority party.

So how did the prime minister come into being? To put it simply, the prime minister is actually the political leader of the parliamentary majority, which means that only if your party wins the election can the political leader of that party become prime minister. The political leader of a political party is to be voted by the party's core members.

In Australia, each party has a caucus, also known as a parliamentary caucus, and the Caucus, leader is elected by these people, not by the party's national Congress. Of course, these Caucus members must listen to their own faction before voting. Usually there are several factions in various political parties, each of which has its own leading figures. These people are party power brokers, and they are not necessarily members of the federal parliament or cabinet, but they have a great deal of influence. If you want to be a leader, you have to get their support. Kevin Rudd, Australia's former prime minister, was unable to get the necessary support for offending some of the party's elites and had to cede his position as leader to Gillard.

In general, before the election of a political leader, the party will undergo a long period of brewing and competition, sometimes without an election. As soon as the current leader sees that his or her general situation has gone away, he will voluntarily give up his position as a leader to the challenger. Sometimes the current leader is not willing, or the two sides are close to each other, then they have to go through a vote.