Preferences

Official Party Document The veracity of this document is ensured by the National Council and editing of this page is limited to members of the National Council.

Preference Process (Group Voting Tickets)

Pirate Party Australia, in keeping with being transparent and participatory will be making out Senate preference deals as open and as democratic as the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) allows. The National Council adopted the following process for managing preferences:

The preference template will be determined by ballot of the members.

• Preferences will be determined using the alternative vote system
• Any addition to the AEC register of parties will automatically trigger a reballot for the preference template

Preference deals must be ratified by the majority of the membership.

• Preference deals are not mathematical, just political

A committee made up of the Election Committee and interested and available Full Members will oversee the 24 hour preference submission period as mandated by the AEC.

• Upon the beginning of the 24 hour preference submission period, the Committee will be tasked with researching the candidates missing from the original template.
• During that period, the committee must convene to determine the final order based on the final senate candidate listing from the AEC
• Any changes must be justified and announced to the party at the conclusion of the meeting
• The committee must consider any grievances before the submission of the document

Responses from other parties:

• Australian Democrats
• Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party
• Australian Greens
• Australian Independents
• Australian Stable Population Party
• Building Australia Party
• Family First Party
• Future Party
• Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party
• Liberal Democratic Party
• No Carbon Tax Climate Change Skeptics
• One Nation
• Secular Party
• Senator Online

The letter sent to other parties:

Hi Pirate Party Australia are champions of transparency and democracy, and to that end we have developed a process to engage our entire membership on preferences and a preferential vote will be held to ultimately determine preference ranks. These results will be published publicly on our website so that Australian voters can make an informed choice. If you have a message or offer to put to our membership as to why your party should be preferenced by our party in any particular state or nationally please state your case clearly and highlight how your party, if elected, would advance the same goals as Pirate Party Australia or what your party is willing to offer in exchange for higher preferencing. Your letters of offer will be published along with our preference data to show our reasoning and maintain the transparency of our democratic process. Thank you, we look forward to your offer. Pirate Party Australia National Council

Other Information

• Pirate Party Press Release on these preferencing plans: https://pirateparty.org.au/2013/07/18/pirate-party-leads-the-way-with-transparent-preferencing/
• Video that explains how Senate votes are counted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTamidDoG6g
• AEC Website with a Senate 'How to Vote' overview: http://www.aec.gov.au/voting/How_to_vote/Voting_Senate.htm
• AEC website detailing how the Senate votes are counted: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/senate_count.htm

Preference Results

• 2013 Federal Election
• 2014 WA Senate Election

Preferences Tools

• http://preferences.theglobalmail.org/ Visualisation of each party preference orders
• http://www.belowtheline.org.au/ Tool to help you determine your below the line vote if you wish to vote below the line
• http://senate.io/ Drag and drop your preferred order to help you vote below the line