Teaching article
Preferential voting: work through an official demonstration
Follow the AEC's school-election instructions and name the real process the model is intended to illustrate.
Preferential counting needs more than ranking favourite things. Use the electoral commission's classroom demonstration, including its instructions and stopping conditions, so the model teaches a defined counting process rather than an invented shortcut.
To hand: An AEC classroom example and ranked ballots.
Read the nominated counting instructions. Demonstrate rankings using the supplied example. Explain each transfer using those instructions.
Watch what happens after first preferences
Follow the official demonstration's counting procedure exactly. Stop to distinguish first preferences, transferred preferences and the conditions for ending the count.
A ranked ballot records preferences; the next step depends on the specified electoral model rather than an invented classroom shortcut.
Do not present every preferential system as identical. Can students explain why one transfer occurred?
Use fewer fictional candidates and adult reading.
Resources
- Fair Rule or Random Rule? — Compare proposed rules and explain their practical effects.
Further reading
- Parliamentary Education Office — classroom activities
- Australian Electoral Commission — Democracy Rules
Read next
- Why make a classroom ballot private?
- From bill to law: keep the missing stages in view
- A fictional public budget: explain what the numbers leave out
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