A parliamentary committee has released its report on the Future of Victoria’s Electoral Administration, including a recommendation to adopt optional preferential voting for Legislative Assembly elections. Under full preferential voting, people must number every box on the ballot paper. Under an optional preferential system, voters would have to indicate their first choice, and then choose how many further preferences to allocate. The ABC’s electoral analyst, Antony Green, suggests the proposal might be driven by politics, as it would advantage the Liberal party. Although the recommendation was included in the final report, it was only supported by the two Liberal MPs on the committee. The three Labor and National MPs submitted minority reports rejecting the plan.
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