PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA
Tel  +613 9589 1802 Tel  +61429176725
18 Anita Street
BEAUMARIS VIC 3193
Fax  +613 9589 1680  ggd@netspace.net.au
 12th February 2007
 
An 1875 New South Wales "First-past-the-post" Ballot-paper compared with a 1977 "Preferential voting" Ballot-paper
 
The "BALLOTING PAPER" at the left was the form of ballot-paper used
in the 1875 poll for the "first-past-the-post" election of one member
of the NSW Legislative Assembly for the electorate of Murrumbidgee.
  
No instructions appear on the paper, but the law required the striking out of
the names of the candidates that the voter did not want to vote for, leaving
clear the name of the candidate that the voter did want to vote for.
  
This law still applied in 1901, and under Section 10 of the Australian
Constitution it applied to NSW Senate elections until the Commonwealth
Parliament, which had not yet been elected, decided otherwise. There were
50 candidates for the 6 NSW Senate positions. The task of striking out
at least 44 names led to a record 17.5% of the ballots cast being invalid.

The "BALLOT-PAPER" at the left was the form of ballot-paper used in
the 1977 poll for the election of one member of the Australian House of
Representatives for the NSW electoral division of Parramatta, and it
implements the preferential voting that was introduced by the
Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, which replaced the
first-past-the-post voting used before then.

The crude first-past-the-post procedure is now largely confined to the
United Kingdom and certain of its former possessions, such as the United
States of America, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Canada. It has been
superseded in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Eire, Malta and
Sri Lanka.

The preceding Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 had replaced the
error-prone procedure of voters being required to strike out the names of
the candidates that they were not voting for with a simpler procedure of
marking a cross (X) against the name of the candidate that they were voting
for.
  
Clear directions appear at the top of paper, and a ballot-paper is informal
(invalid) if there is no number 1, and number 2 against the names of the
candidates, with neither of those numbers appearing more than once on the
ballot-paper.