Donkey Vote - Hare-Clark Elections

Hare-Clark Elections

Two Australian jurisdictions use the Hare-Clark proportional representation system to elect their lower houses: namely, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (unicameral system). Tasmania has used Hare-Clark since 1907, and the ACT since 1995. Candidates used to be listed in alphabetical order within a party list leading to a donkey vote effect. For their ballots to be valid, voters need only number as many candidates as there are vacancies to be filled, although they are free to number all the candidates if they wish.

However, it was observed that often a candidate whose name appeared below the name of a popular candidate (such as a State party leader) would be elected on the leader's second preferences. As popular leaders such as Robin Gray, Kate Carnell or Jon Stanhope have achieved several quotas of first-preference votes in their own right at the height of their popularity, the impact of this position can lead to candidates being elected on the leaders' "coat-tails". A similar phenomenon has been observed in Ireland and Malta, which also use STV (with candidates ranked alphabetically).

In 1979, Neil Robson, a Liberal member for Bass in the Tasmanian parliament, introduced the system known as Robson Rotation. Under this system, each ballot paper contains a different permutation of candidates so each candidate has a certain proportion of times at every position in their party's column, therefore equally dispersing the donkey votes and nullifying their impact on the result.