By Jack Cross, with contributions from Chas Underwood
One of the murkier elements in the already murky world of student elections is the dealing away of preferences.
Guild elections, like most elections in Australia, use a form of preferential voting. In short, this means if your favoured candidate doesn’t hit the required threshold to win, your vote goes to your next most preferred candidate.
Of course, many voters don’t have the time or interest to review every candidate contesting an election. In most cases, voters will have an idea of who their favourite is, but not necessarily who might be their next best option.
Candidates make this a bit easier for voters by issuing how-to-vote cards, which make a recommendation for voters to follow. In federal or state elections, these tend to be on ideological lines – e.g. Labor preferences the Greens above the Liberals, but preferences the Liberals above One Nation – but they also often involve deals, in which parties agree to preference each other. This is especially common for minor parties, for example, Wilson Tucker (who we interviewed earlier this year) was elected for the Daylight Savings Party from only 98 votes thanks to a complex network of preference deals.
Guild groups try a similar strategy, agreeing to mutually preference each other on how-to-vote cards in the hope of garnering enough votes to make it over the line.
Do they work though? Definitely not. There’s nothing forcing voters to follow the order on the card, and with the number of candidates on the ballot paper, many don’t.
There’s no direct, reliable way to measure how-to-vote compliance – the exact state of every ballot cast is not recorded. However, we can make some reasonably accurate judgements by investigating to what extent actual preference flows match the preference flows suggested on how-to-vote cards.
Even under the most generous assumptions, follow rates are quite weak. Only about one in four voters, given they are voting for a particular group, actually marked that group’s number-one candidate as their own number-one vote. (The exception is Left Action: about 60% of their voters did so.)
It’s difficult to analyse more deeply; many groups’ top candidates were elected or knocked out of the running too late for their preferences to flow down their ticket. But of the groups we could find the relevant information for, barely any of their voters followed the how-to-vote card for as few as two boxes: at most 10% for SPARK, and at most 3% for GLOBAL.
The reality is that most voters number boxes almost randomly, likely as not looking for names they recognise rather than exhibiting the discipline group organisers would like to see.
Who’s made a deal?
Pelican reached out to all groups and candidates asking for details of any preference deals made. It’s often a condition of any deal that it cannot be publicly disclosed, so non-responses from candidates are to be expected.
Independent candidate Olivia Stronach (running as both an Ordinary Guild Councillor and National Union of Students delegate) said the preferences on her how-to-vote cards will be the candidates she believes are best suited to the job, but would not state if these were part of a deal or not. Likewise, THUNDER spokesman Nic Charnley said the group “has preferenced independents and [groups] that align with our core values” and would not specify whether or not this was part of a deal.
Not all the candidates have been so cagey. REVIVE openly stated that they have an agreement with AMITY, in which AMITY awards preferences to REVIVE’s office bearer candidates (since AMITY has none of its own) and REVIVE preferences AMITY’s candidate for the ISD Presidency (since REVIVE isn’t running one). AMITY did not respond to Pelican’s request for comment.
A similar arrangement has been used by SPARK and GLOBAL for several years, and Pelican understands the same agreement is in place this year. GLOBAL declined to comment when contacted by Pelican. In a statement, SPARK said that it “has and always will work collaboratively […] with any other groups and independents that share our core mission” and that the group “makes preference deals accordingly. Any decisions on our how-to-vote cards are always made in good faith”.
Interestingly, independent candidate Faisal Bakhrayba (who is running to be a National Union of Students delegate) said he had entered into an agreement with AMITY and fellow independent Ieeshwardhan Singh (who is running to be an Ordinary Guild Councillor). Bakhrayba also stated he would be supporting REVIVE office-bearers, although REVIVE’s group agent Parham Bahrami clarified that the group had not made any deal with Bakhrayba.
However, Singh explicitly denied making any preference deals, stating “I will be running in the election as an independent candidate, and I assure my voters of this fact.” Pelican is very interested to see what sort of how-to-vote cards Singh hands out this week.
LIFT and Social Justice did not respond to Pelican’s inquiries.
AI Party stated that it “officially affirms that decisions relating to preference deals with groups or candidates are made solely at the discretion of our AI overlords, and all directions given by the party reflect the good faith recommendations of those overlords.”
Special thanks to politics sub-editor Chas Underwood for his assistance analysing preference flows in previous elections.