Originally Posted by
Wayne
Its called gaming. People like David Leyonhjelm - the new NSW senator whose published views bear a remarkable resemblance to our troll's - used a very simple mathematic formula to harvest preferences from other microparties. Cynically, Leyonhjelm set up several microparties so each would direct preferences to each other. The way it works is think of 100 votes for 10 seats. Party A is guaranteed 50 votes and thus 5 seats; party B, 30 for 3; and party C ,10 for one. That means there are 10 votes up for grabs to determine the last seat. The three major parties will try to win that seat, but so too will the 70 other candidates nominated. So whoever is best at harvesting their preferences is in the best position to get that last seat. If one of these micropartie candidates can get preferences from most of the other micros, and maybe from one of the major parties, then he is in with a high probability of winning. Leyonhjelm has been doing this for years and finally struck lucky last election. He was aided by getting his party's name "liberal democrat" past the electoral commission's guard and a fortunate placing on the ballot paper. He was very lucky.
The problem with our current senate system is that we have above and below the line optional voting. This means that we don't know to whom the party has directed preferences, if we vote above the line.
Now Leyonhjelm has $1 million of tax payers money, and paid staff, to do his bidding. It is naive to say he is not using those resources to further his agenda.