That only goes for the Senate voting. In the lower house there are fewer candidates for each electorate - usually 6-12, a party can put forward one candidate. Again preferential voting but every candidate must be numbered for the vote to be counted. I like the preferential part, but it's not quite as easy to explain as the offside rule.

They do. The compulsory part is to attend a polling booth or to submit a postal vote. What many people do is to give their opinions (in colourful language) of the candidates instead of numbering the boxes - their votes are classified as "informal" and not counted. Although I think (can't be bothered looking it up right now) that any vote which has unambiguous numbering of the candidates is a formal vote regardless of any opinions on the ballot paper.

In nearly half a century of voting I've only ever voted FOR anybody once. But there have been an awful lot I've voted against.

ondoho, I should add (based on what others have already said), the end result will be, ether the ALP (Australian Labor Party) or the Liberal Party, will end up in government. For what it's worth, I don't trust ether of them, full stop, period!

^ well yes, for me it's always been about choosing the least offending party/person.
but then on the other hand, who'd want to be a politician themselves, so i won't complain.

this?

now that made me laugh!

[QUOTE=ondoho;5696061]^ well yes, for me it's always been about choosing the least offending party/person.
but then on the other hand, who'd want to be a politician themselves, so i won't complain.

this?

Yes, except for the part about "voters in IRV elections can rank the candidates in order of preference" - if a voter only puts a "1" for their preferred candidate and leaves any other candidates unranked the the vote is informal and not counted.

Apparently most of the polling officials' time is taken up deciding whether or not votes are formal or not.