You Can’t ‘Waste’ Your Vote!

Read part 2 here: What’s the Go with Voting for the Senate?
Read this comic in Cantonese Chinese: 你的一票不會浪費!

Preferential voting explained

Ken the Voting Dingo looks confused and distressed, poor fella

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 [So-So Major Party]. We must vote for [So-So Major Party] to keep [Much 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.

Dennis the Election Koala shows you a green ballot paper

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!

You Can't 'Waste' Your Vote, page 1
You Can't 'Waste' Your Vote, page 2
You Can't 'Waste' Your Vote, page 3
You Can't 'Waste' Your Vote, page 4

Share this comic

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

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 PDFs are suitable for offset printing as well as home printing. 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.

JPG, 1000 pixels wide (for web sharing)Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4
PDF for colour printing (CMYK)Download (12.5 MB)
PDF for black-and-white printingDownload (2.6 MB)

If you find value in this comic and love to share it, please support this project by supporting its creator. With your help, I’d like to continue the project into the future: building a dedicated, better-organised website, and adding more comics and information, such as…

  • Explaining Senate voting (much requested) DONE! Thank you!
  • Differences in state elections (for each state and territory)
  • Miscellaneous election-related comics/infographics
  • Translations of the comics into languages other than English

Dennis the Election Koala wearing his most winning "Please, please, pleeease" expression

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

Aggy-Waggy Flufftums jumping for joy

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, stickers

You Can't Waste Your Vote - horizontal poster

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!

And, phwoar, what’s this? A transparent vinyl ‘SLAPPO!!!’ sticker, suitable for any relatively smooth, flat surface in your neighbourhood, workplace, or public facility? Yes! Buy twenty!


Get updates

Ken the Voting Dingo gasps at something on his smartphone

I’d like to expand and continue the grand project of democracy, for which I am solely responsible. To make sure you hear about it when I release a new comic or other astonishing thing, sign up to my email list. The emails will be pleasantly infrequent. Thanks for your confidence in me.


Q&A

Is there a comic like this for Senate voting?

YES THERE IS.

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?

Ken the Voting Dingo looking thoughtful and perhaps suspicious

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.

Comic text (for search engines)

// page 1 //

This is Australia, not America.

You Can’t “Waste” Your Vote!

How voting works in a federal election for the House of Representatives (‘Lower House’)

Hello Australia. It’s me, your good friend Dennis the Election Koala.

It’s that time again, so let’s meet the candidates hoping to represent your electorate in the House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament…

Major Parties

Bamboot Spitvalve

Complete Scumbag Party

Policies:

Kick puppies

Beat the poor

Pineapple on pizza

Floundra MacWhatnot

Discreet Scumbag Party

Policies:

Put puppies to work

Chastise the poor

Pizza under pineapple

Minor Parties & Independents

Gort Butterson

Independent

Policies:

Televised puppy torture

Mandatory constipation

Toot toot, I’m a boat

Aggy-Waggy Flufftums

Nice Party

Policies:

Hugs

A cup of tea

Smash the state

// page 2 //

Struth, Dennis, and crikey besides! I want to vote for the Nice Party, but I know they won’t win, so I guess I’d better vote for the Discreet Scumbags…

…Otherwise I’m just throwing my vote away!!

Wrong, Ken the Voting Dingo!!!

SLAPPO!

?!

Vote!

[3] Spitvalve, Bamboot

Complete Scumbag

[2] MacWhatnot, Floundra

Discreet Scumbag

[4] Butterson, Gort

Independent

[1] Flufftums, Aggy-Waggy

Nice

In Australia, we have preferential voting. You can vote for the Discreet Scumbags to beat the Complete Scumbags, and still “vote 1” for a minor party or independent!

Huh? Whuh?? I don’t understand!

// page 3 //

Preferential Voting Explained

To win a seat, a candidate must end up with an absolute majority — that is, over 50% of the total votes. Imagine your electorate has 100 voters: 51 votes are needed to win.

First the “1” votes are counted. But look — no-one has 51 votes or more!

The loser, Gort, is eliminated. But the six people who voted “1” for Gort now have their “2” votes (second preferences) counted and transferred to those candidates.

Still no-one has an absolute majority of 51 or more! So Aggy-Waggy is eliminated, and her votes transferred according to the next preferences.

Oh!

A surprise victory for Floundra!

This example based on an infographic on this Parliamentary Education Office webpage — a great reference!

www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/federal-elections.html (Dec. 2018)

// page 4 //

So basically, if my first choice doesn’t win, my second choice gets counted as my first choice, and so on.

Correct!

But since my second choice won anyway, what was the point of putting a minor party first?

Ah!

Firstly…

Minor parties and independents can and do win seats if enough people vote for them. Since you lose nothing by voting “1” for whomever you like most, why wouldn’t you?

Oh! Mm.

Secondly…

This might happen:

Preferences from Nice Party voters made a big difference!

I’ll need to keep them happy if I want to beat Bamboot again next time.

I’ll look into this… “hugs”.

Thirdly…

If a candidate gets at least 4% of first preferences (“1” votes), they’ll receive election funding for each of those votes*, which will help their next campaign!

I bought a sign!

* Approx. $2.76 at the 2019 election. The amount is indexed every 6 months in line with CPI. Source: AEC (Nov. 2018)

Any more questions, Ken the Voting Dingo?

Do I have to number all the boxes?

Yes.

Do I have to follow a “how to vote” card?

No.

// text box //

Share this comic freely!

High quality versions for sharing and duplication:

chickennation.com/voting

Found this comic useful? Want more like it? Support the creator:

ko-fi.com/patrickalexander

Get official information and practice voting:

aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_Vote/

Your vote matters.

Vote thoughtfully!

© 2013-2019 Patrick Alexander

chickennation.com

v2.0 Colour