You Can’t ‘Waste’ Your Vote!

Preferential voting explained

Australia is saturated in media from the USA and the UK. Through entertainment, current affairs, and social media, we hear things like:

“There’s no point voting for [Independent Candidate] because they’ll never get in — it’s a wasted vote!”

“Sure, [Good Minor Party] has good policies, but all they do is take votes away from [Bad Major Party]. We must vote for [Bad Major Party] to keep [Worse Major Party] out!”



Many Australians absorb these messages and assume they apply to our elections too — and our two major parties benefit from the misconception.



But whereas both the USA and the UK use ‘first-past-the-post’ voting systems for their national elections, Australia’s system is more elegant than that. In elections for the House of Representatives, we use preferential voting — also known as instant-runoff voting, ranked choice voting, or ‘the alternative vote’ in the UK.



So here’s Dennis the Election Koala to give Ken the Voting Dingo an important lesson in civics!



Share this comic

Where I’ve posted it: Twitter | Tumblr | Imgur

You are encouraged to share this comic online and in print — and wow, you guys really do! Here it is in the formats you need:

The black-and-white version is ideal for cheap duplication. For maximum clarity and fidelity, it is straight black-and-white: no greys, gradients, or halftones. Resize, make copies of copies, etc. with no fear of moiré or faded details.

If you find value in this comic and love to share it, please support this project by sending the author a few dollars via ko-fi. With your help, I’d like to add further comics in the future (ideally before the next election):

Explaining Senate voting (much requested)

(much requested) Differences in state elections (for each state and territory)

(for each state and territory) Miscellaneous election-related comics/infographics

Support this project Slap that button to throw some coins into Dennis’ hat. SLAPPO!!

Share the comic on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, internet forums, your own blog, etc.

Come election time, letterbox your street or apartment building, and hand it out at polling places. Print it out poster-sized and hang it on a wall in the student lounge. Oh, are you a candidate yourself? Do an offset print run and include this comic in your mailouts!



The comic makes an ideal four-page booklet at A5 size — ie. just a single sheet of A4 paper, printed on both sides.

The PDFs are formatted as individual pages, not spreads, however any good PDF reading/printing application (e.g. Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader) will have a booklet printing option in its ‘Print’ dialog box.



If you’d like the comic in a format not available here, let me know.



How to share nicely

You’re free to share the comic online and in print, however…



Wherever practical, please credit the author (Patrick Alexander) and link to this webpage.

You may not alter the comic in any way: don’t add, take away, or change anything.

You may not use the comic for any commercial purpose.

If you’d like to use the comic in some way and you’re not sure if it’s OK or not, by all means drop me a line and ask about it. (I’m particularly interested to hear from anyone interested in translating the comic into another language.)

Posters

By popular request, I’ve made print-on-demand posters available — perfect for offices, classrooms, common rooms, lounges, waiting rooms and reception areas… even homes!

Get updates

I’d like to expand this project to include explainers about Senate voting, voting in state elections, and so on. If you want to make sure you hear about it when I release a new comic, sign up to my email thing. Thanks for your confidence in me.

Q&A

Is there a comic like this for Senate voting?

I’m planning to make one, but I need your support. Some dollars and an encouraging message via ko-fi will help to make the much-requested Senate voting comic happen!

Didn’t this comic used to look different?

Yes! The original version came out ahead of the 2013 election. This is version 2, updated and improved. But it’s by the same guy, don’t worry.

Is this comic advocating for preferential voting?

Personally, I think preferential/instant-runoff voting is clearly better than first-past-the-post, but electoral systems based on proportional representation seem even better to me. But I’m no expert. The purpose of the comic is not to advocate for anything, but simply to explain to Australian voters how Australia’s system works.

What about Arrow’s impossibility theorem? Isn’t it irresponsible of you not to even mention this esoteric and extremely complicated mathematical proof in your funny koala comic? I am smart.

I’m sorry.

I love animals and was upset by the part where the real koala was made to slap the real, living dingo for the amusement of baying spectators. Animals never fight in nature; where did you get such a sick idea?

I’m so sorry.

This comic is politically biased! The Complete Scumbag Party is obviously meant to represent Real Party X. It is so biased to paint Real Party X as outright villains with cartoonishly evil policies like ‘Kick puppies’ and ‘Beat the poor’.

If you saw those cartoonishly evil policies and recognised Real Party X, surely the problem is with Real Party X and not my comic?

Thank you

Thanks for visiting, reading, and sharing. Don’t forget to support this project if you can. It’s seriously a lot of work, but, you know: democracy! Hooray!

Questions, comments, enquiries? Get in touch.