PSEPHOLOGIST and Cairns News contributor Lex Stewart has urged Monica Smit and other minor party supporters to make sure their followers do not vote in the Senate according to the “six above the line” option.
In an email to Ms Smit, Mr Stewart described how the six-above-the-line voting system was instigated by the Greens, opposed by Labor and supported by the Liberals, who did not understand its implications. Labor did and opposed it.
“I am one of very few people who understand the mathematics of preference flows, and after each election I analyse the huge amounts of voting numbers that the AEC publishes in vast spreadsheets,” he said.
“This new method of senate voting of 1 to only 6 was designed by the Greens for the specific purpose of giving the Greens a hidden, deceitful mathematical advantage, that is inbuilt to the method.”
Mr Stewart was concerned that Ms Smit did not understand that because in her how-to-vote video she did not specifically say not to vote six above the line, although she does say in her video, her preferred method was to vote for all the minor parties first, followed by Liberal-National Party with Labor and Greens last.
Mr Stewart says neither the Liberal or National MPs understood the new voting system and “blindly supported leftie PM Malcolm Turnbull ramming it through the parliament.”
“But Hansard shows that the ALP did understand. In Hansard you can read that the ALP were furiously and ardently opposed to this new (2016) senate voting method, because they did understand that the more advantages the Greens get, then the less seats are available for the ALP.”
Mr Stewart says it is entirely possible for many people to number Liberals after a few minors, and end up wasting their votes. He gave the example, using NSW candidates:
1 for Group M, Silvana Nile – group M does have some reasonable chance of being elected;
2 group I Libertarian/ Heart coalition group
3 group H Aust Christians
4 group L Indigenous
5 group P Citizens Party
6 Coalition (Libs + Nats) in group N.
Stewart suggests none of the I, H, L, P have any chance of being elected, but the failure to include a preference flow on to 7 for Family First in group E, and 8 for One Nation in group F means that those two groups (who do have some chance of winning a seat) would not get built up so as to overtake the Greens.
This means that the Greens sit there on a partial quota (about two-thirds of a quota) and we end up with a Green getting elected as the sixth Senator in each state. “Yes, it (i.e. the unfair advantage to the Greens) has happened before,” says Mr Stewart.
He notes that in the 2016 federal election, the Greens who got only 8.7% of the votes won 12% of the Senate seats while the combined votes of all the ‘right’, centre and other parties, which added together comprised 20% of the votes (well in excess of the 14% quota) missed out.
“But if many voters had numbered way beyond 6, one non-Green Party would not have missed out.”
He noted further that in the 2019 federal election, the Greens who got only 10% of the votes, won 15% of the Senate seats, while again the combined votes of all the ‘right’, centre and other parties added together comprised 18.6% of the votes (well in excess of the 14% quota) but missed out.
“But if many voters had numbered way beyond 6, one non-Green party would not have missed out,” said Mr Stewart.
“The only antidote to the hidden deceitful mathematical advantage to the Greens that is built into the senate voting method is to please number above the line not six but all squares, putting the Greens last i.e. at 18 in NSW, at 19 in Queensland etc. That is very simple advice.”
