The impact of optional rpeferential voting on the 2001 Queensland state election

The ALP's "Just Vote 1" campaign message was designed to limit to effect of preference exchange among conservative parties. This paper analyses the impact of this tactic which produced a 53.6% increase in the exhausted vote over the 1998 election even though there were ten seats in 2001 with only two candidates (and thus no exhausted votes). The size of the landslide to Labor made this tactic irrelevant but it affected the outcome in five seats and could have been decisive in a closer election. The concern is raised that the optional preferential system produces a less representative and less democratic outcome.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Humanities, Languages and Social SciencesFull Tex