THE order of candidates as they appear on the House of Representatives ballot paper, and the 10 candidates for the Parkes region are locked in and ready for the Federal Election in less than two weeks’ time.
The reason why the ballot paper (the green paper) order is drawn randomly is for fairness, due to the top candidate having an advantage when it comes to ‘donkey votes’.
Donkey votes are when a voter numbers ballot paper candidates in order of top to bottom, instead of their preference in leadership.
In Australia’s voting system preferential voting is used, which means that if a House of Representatives candidate is put down as a voter’s first choice, but is excluded due to low votes, then the full power of the votes goes to the next preference (candidate listed number two on the ballot).
This process continues until the vote counts towards one of the top two candidates in that region.
The random draw to determine the candidate order for each division was executed by the office of the Divisional Returning Officer on Friday, April 11; this order and the full list of 10 candidates for the region is below:
Mark Carter – Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
Stephen Pope – Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party
Trish Frail – The Greens
Petrus van der Steen – Trumpet of Patriots
Bob Wilson – Indigenous-Aboriginal Party of Australia
Nathan Fell – Labor
Jamie Chaffey – The Nationals
Maurice Davey – Family First
Stuart Howe – Independent
Sally Edwards – Libertarians
Early and election day polling places can be found by going to https://www.aec.gov.au/ and using the Where Can I Vote? tool.
