Immigration Forum / Australia and NZ / November 2007

Good Morning, Max:

There is an excellent reason for this, actually.  The Australian
voting system works quite differently than the U.S. system.  In
the USA, the President and the Vice-President are not directly
elected by popular vote, but by the Electoral College.  

See Article II & Amendment XII  of the Constitution of the United
States.  To quote a bit  from the article on The Electoral
College as described in The World Almanac & Book of Facts,
available from most public libraries. 2002 edition, ISBN
0-88687-872-1, p. 588:

[First paragraph]
"The president and the vice president are the only elective
federal officials not chosen by direct vote of the people.  They
are elected by members of the Electoral College, an institution
provided for in the U.S. Constitution."  

[Final paragraph]
"Under the electoral college system, a candidate who fails to be
the top vote getter in the popular vote may still win with a
majority of electoral votes.  This happened in the elections of
1876, 1888, and 2000."

For a brief online reference on similarities and differences
between the  U.S. & Australian political systems, see:

http://australianpolitics.com/usa/australia/

Actually, this page isn't completely accurate.  For one thing, it
states "whereas the US President is directly elected by the
people " which isn't the case.

The U.S. has what might be called a "First past the post"
system, so the Republican or Democratic parties will
generally win Government, and votes by minor parties
aren't all that significant.  

Australia has a proportional voting system where all votes
are significant, in that as on the ballot the voter numbers
their choice of parties in order of preference, and the minor
parties can transfer their votes to one of the major parties
if the minor party doesn't win.

There are always a large number of postal votes, and the
final exact tally of all votes and all assigned preferences
will probably take another week.  Not that it will affect the
outcome all that much.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, is not the same as the
US President.  He is a member of the House of Representatives
and "first among equals".  

His electoral seat, Bennelong, wasn't decided, for sure, until
yesterday.  Had he retained it, he might have decided to stay on
as leader of the Liberal Opposition.  However, as it happened, he
lost his seat to Labor, so is entirely out of Parliament.

Again, the system here is quite different than the US.  I suppose
I should mention that in the US system, the President has certain
executive powers.  Here, they are in the hands of the Governor
General, who is rarely involved in day to day Government.

Basically, though to get back to your accusation that the ABC
is "abjectly lazy" it isn't.  You wouldn't get any better results
from any other news source.  

For practical purposes, the win by Labor was effectively known
by around 11 PM on election day.

Hope this clarifies the issues involved for readers of all
groups.  If they want further information they can do further
research on the differences between the Australian and U.S.
system.

I rarely cross post, but I think it important that since you have
made your accusation against the ABC on all groups that
I offer a reply to same.  

Cheers,
Kangaroo16
Posting from misc.immigration, australia+nz