When you vote for the House of Representatives in this year's federal election, there's a lot more to it than considering which party you like the most.

The green ballot paper is for you to elect a candidate for your electorate. If your favourite candidate receives more than half of all '1' votes, then they win. If not, that’s when your '2' and '3' votes count.

While there has been talk of preference "deals" lately, voters themselves decide where their preferences go. Any preference deal between parties in the lower house is to put some parties behind others on how-to-vote cards, which voters do not have to follow.

This visualisation explains how it works. Note: this is for the House of Representatives (lower house) only, not the Senate (upper house).