A flurry of preference deals between political parties have been announced in the past week, but you may be left scratching your head wondering how it actually affects your vote.

These deals are particularly influential in the Legislative Council, where many new parties are hoping to steal seats off the major parties.

So we will try to help you figure out how to make your vote for the Legislative Council count.

The Legislative Council, or Upper House, is selected using the proportional representation system, which is designed for electing many members for the one electoral area.

Voters in the upcoming election will elect six candidates to represent them in their Legislative Council region.

There are six regions across the state — three in the city and three in the country — represented by a total number of 36 Upper House MPs.

Each of these members will have received a certain minimum number, or quota, of votes.

The process starts to get complex when there are fewer than six candidates in a region with a quota and when preferences need to be redistributed.

The preferences of the candidates with the fewest votes are redistributed first and this process continues until a candidate has a quota of votes and there are six candidates with a quota.

Record number of Upper House candidates

If you want to make sure your preferences are followed, ensuring the candidates you support have the strongest chance of being elected, you must number every box below the line.

If you are happy for your preferences to flow according to the voting tickets negotiated by the candidates and parties, you can vote above the line. All you need to do is put the number one in the box of the party whose ticket you support.

The vote counting system gets complicated when preferences are distributed. ( ABC News: Jade Macmillan )

If it sounds like hard work to vote below the line, it will be even more involved this year, given the record number (302) of people in the running for an Upper House seat.

That is almost double the number of candidates from the 2013 state election, with voters in the South Metropolitan region having 58 candidates to choose from on their ballot paper.

Undoubtedly, voting above the line is quick, straightforward and popular — the WA Electoral Commission says more than 95 per cent of voters choose to do so — but it gives you a weaker chance of influencing the outcome.

"By voting above the line electors relinquish their right to determine their own order of preference," the spokesperson said.

"The electoral commission must then distribute preferences in accordance with the ticket submitted by that party or group."

What are voting tickets?

To be listed above the line, a candidate or party must have lodged a voting ticket, which shows how their preferences should be distributed by the WAEC.

Given that such a high percentage of people vote above the line, these tickets are incredibly influential and often the result of complex negotiations by political parties.

For example, the WA Liberals have a deal with Pauline Hanson's One Nation to preference PHON ahead of the WA Nationals in the Upper House in regional areas.

Some microparties, like the Fluoride Free party and Flux the System, have also struck preference deals with each other with the hope of giving each of them a chance to win a seat in difference upper house regions.

Do I have to follow a how-to-vote card?

Volunteers will ply you with how-to-vote cards, but you don't have to follow them.

No, it is entirely your choice how you decide to fill out your ballot paper.

How-to-vote cards indicate how political parties, candidates and interest groups would like you to vote.

How does WA's Upper House election system differ from the Australian Senate's?

Both houses had the same system until new Senate voting laws were passed by the Australian Parliament last year.

Group voting tickets were abolished and above-the-line voters are required to number the boxes one to six.

The changes were introduced partly in response to the election of candidates who received a tiny proportion of the vote yet benefited from the preference deals they had negotiated, for example, Ricky Muir, of the Australian Motorist Enthusiast party, whose party received just 0.51 per cent of the vote.

As ABC election analyst Antony Green noted in his blog last year, the new system ensures that preferences are directed by voters and not the parties.

"What the changes did do was abolish the system of group voting tickets that had existed since 1984," he wrote.

"This ended the ability of parties to control and engage in preference deals with each other. Under the new system, the only between party preferences counted would be those filled in by voters themselves."