Donkey Vote - The Australian Senate

The Australian Senate

The Senate also had a preferential system between 1919 and 1949. Voters had to select (with X-es) three Senate candidates from a large list of candidates listed alphabetically, rather than grouped by party or randomly. As a result, there was a high donkey vote with the system favouring candidates with names starting with A or B. The most famous example was in the NSW Senate election in 1937 where Labor's ticket featured four candidates named Amour, Ashley, Armstrong and Arthur - all of the "Four A's" were duly elected.

"These days, the order of candidates on the voting form is determined by a draw from a hat. Back then, the Electoral Commission simply followed the alphabet. This led to many interesting battles of tactics between the Comms (Communist Party of Australia) and their arch-rivals the DLP (Democratic Labor Party), who were also keen to get their people at the head of the ticket. The Comms usually won, thanks to their recruitment of numerous members of the Aarons family: short of re-christening their own candidates something like Aardvark, there wasn’t much the DLP could do about it.... Those crucial ballots turned out to have cast not by Communists but by donkeys, and as Killen’s name preceded that of the now-forgotten Labor candidate in the alphabet, they flowed largely to the Libs.” - Mungo MacCallum, Mungo: The Man Who Laughs (Sydney: Duffy and Snellgrove, 2001), pp 64-65.

The Chifley Government introduced proportional representation for the Senate in 1949. Candidates were listed alphabetically in party order and the position of the parties candidates on the ballot paper was determined by lot after the close of nominations.

In large states such as NSW or Victoria, there might be over 100 candidates on the ballot paper with requirements for voters to list each candidate in order of preference. Consequently, there was a high proportion of informal votes and donkey votes cast in Senate elections.

As a result, electoral reforms were introduced in 1984 allowing voters to vote 1 above the line for the party of their choice and the preferences to be distributed according to a ticket lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission prior to the commencement of voting. This reform has greatly reduced the incidence of donkey voting and informal voting in Australian Senate elections.

However, this system has led to a great increase of horse trading by parties in the development of the distribution of preferences as it makes the difference in deciding who fills the final few positions in the Senate representing that state. For example, the election of Steve Fielding of the Family First Party in the Victorian Senate election with a party vote of 1.88% is an example of the results of horse-trading associated with this process. States which use proportional representation to elect their upper houses such as NSW use a similar system to the Senate.