Election explainer: how are lower house votes counted? And what is 'the swing'?
- Written by Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University
The alternative vote method, known as preferential voting, is used to elect Australia’s House of Representatives. It was first used at a federal election in 1919 to allow for the anti-Labor votes in rural areas to be split between the Nationalists and the newly emerged Country Party. The first-past-the-post vote system was in use prior to...