I've long tried to take Senate voting seriously, but it has been made farcical by the combination of new rules and a plethora of candidates determined to waste their deposits, the latter at least confirming the notion that there is way too much loose money floating around for any economic theories to have any validity. Victoria has 38 grouped candidates who you can allocate preferences to above the line, plus 16 ungrouped independents who you only get to below the line. At least a few of the party labels appear to be seriously misleading and just aimed to capture random attention. Given the lack of centrally recorded How To Vote cards, there is no semi reliable way to get a real handle on some of their true purposes, some but not all making an attempt to give other independents a real chance if enough were to follow preference recommendations. My expectation is that way to many votes will exhaust given instructions indicating six choices above the line and twelve below and even The Greens reluctant to include anybody else with a chance of being elected ahead of Tweedle Dee at six. While it is vital to get Janet Rice back, if it doesn't need my vote to achieve that, I'm still in two minds between Ricky Muir and Meredith Doig, although I'll most likely preference some other friends who can't win ahead of even them. Meanwhile I'm tipping that no Victorian party outside the big three will get close to the 4% needed to get their deposit back or to get public funding. In case anyone cares, should note that the nameless group appears to be the vestiges of the old Democrats and ex-DLP Senator Madigan's MFP stands for Manufacturing & Farming. I'm also considering a below the line shortcut of ignoring the candidates in positions which guarantee they can't be elected, but will still allocate each group's least candidate a preference just in case, as I really do think the number of minors elected should be in rough proportion to their aggregate first prefs. |