Donkey Vote

Donkey Vote

Donkey voters vote the way candidates appear on the ballot paper. Sometimes the term "donkey vote" is incorrectly used to refer to an informal vote (submitting a blank or defaced ballot paper) although this use is not included in major dictionaries.

In Australia, where all federal and state and territory electoral systems combine compulsory voter turnout with some form of preferential voting, donkey vote refers to the practice of numbering the candidates in the order in which appear on the ballot paper, instead of numbering them according to one's preference. This form of voting is most common when full preferential voting is required, such as at Australian federal elections or in the Australian state of Victoria.

There are different versions of the phenomenon applicable in the Australian House of Representatives, Australian Senate and in the Australian jurisdictions that use the Hare-Clark system. Donkey votes are typically cast by uninterested voters, protesting voters or voters ignorant about the voting system. As voting is compulsory in Australia, "donkey votes" are an important measure of protest or apathy. The number of voters who protest against voting by spoiling their ballot or submitting a blank ballot is unknown, as these votes are tallied along with informal votes.

Some estimate that "donkey votes" can comprise up to 2% of the total. It is said that parties used to deliberately select candidates with a high alphabetical ranking. In 1984 voting reforms were introduced to lessen this effect, including listing names in a random order.

Donkey votes are not limited to Australia: a similar effect has been observed in other democracies, even those without compulsory preferential voting, although the unique presence of these two factors in Australia makes the phenomenon more visible. Donkey voting shows up in US elections, for example, in states which use the "long ballot" for numerous offices, or in multi-seat elections where there are several candidates from the same party. In his book The Rise of Guardian Democracy: The Supreme Court’s Role in Voting Rights, 1845-1969 (Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1974), Ward E.Y. Elliott notes:

"One long-time Democrat precinct captain in Denver noted that, besides having party or lobby support, a candidate had to rank high in the ballot list. Since ballot ranking was alphabetical, most of the eight Denver Senators had names beginning with A, B or C." (p 362, citing appellants’ brief in Lucas v Colorado).

British pro-STV campaigner Enid Lakeman noted the same effect in UK local elections, where significant numbers of voters invited to X (say) three candidates for three council seats would simply X the three highest on the ballot-paper, even if they belonged to different parties.

However, since most non-preferential elections require the voter to mark only one single candidate, or one single party list, it becomes impossible to speculate how many votes for the first candidate or party on the ballot are genuine supporters and how many simply "donkey-voted".

Furthermore, in societies where voting is not compulsory, it seems counter-intuitive that many who attend the polls would be apathetic. However, there may be countervailing factors that produce a "donkey vote" even with voluntary turnout. In many US elections, a voter may well be intensely interested in (e.g.) the Presidential contest but not in other, less prominent races on the same "long ballot".

In Ireland, where voting is preferential but not compulsory, the donkey vote has its greatest effect not between parties but within them. With an alphabetical list of candidates, and several candidates from each major party for the 3 to 5 seats per district, the proportion of Dáil Éireann deputies with surnames A to M is typically much higher than 50%, whereas it is only about half the population (according to the Irish telephone directory). (See, e.g., B Walsh and C Robson, Alphabetical Voting: A Study of the 1973 General Election in the Republic of Ireland, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), General Research Series No #71, Dublin, January 1973). In O’Reilly v Minister for Environment IR 143, the Irish High Court upheld the constitutional validity of alphabetical listing against an equality-rights challenge, noting that despite its faults, A to Z does have the advantage of making it easy to find candidates on the ballot-paper.

Moreover, in some elections (e.g. Germany and some US States), the order of parties on the ballot is descending order of their support at the previous election (with new parties being placed lowest in random order). A system like this makes high ballot position both a cause and an effect of high electoral support.