Election results inevitably leave a lot of people disappointed.
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But Shane Rattenbury's success in clinging on to the balance of power in the Legislative Assembly led some Canberra residents to question why the ACT uses the Hare-Clark voting system for its elections.
Some readers of The Canberra Times argued this week that the territory would be better off adopting the model of single-member electorates used in other mainland states and the Northern Territory.
It's impossible to know precisely how the major parties would have fared if the Assembly had been elected using single-member districts, instead of three multi-member electorates.
But if ACT residents made similar voting choices to the last election, the most likely outcome would have been Labor or the Liberals gaining a majority in the Assembly, with the Greens left out altogether.
Using electoral commission data on the number of enrolled voters in August 2011, The Canberra Times drew some very rough boundaries on a map to demonstrate what 17 single-member electorates might look like.
The names of notable Canberrans were used to determine the electorate names. No electorates were named after federal politicians.
Voting results from the polling stations within the 17 fictional electorates were used to allocate which party was ahead in each seat before the allocation of preferences.
The new ''north-south political divide'' is reflected in the results, the Liberals performing strongest in the Tuggeranong Valley and parts of Woden while Labor is strongest north of Lake Burley Griffin.
The Greens' vote was dispersed widely, making it unlikely the minor party would win a seat.
Even in the sometimes self-styled ''People's Republic of Ainslie'', the Greens failed to win the greatest share of votes at either polling station.
The result finds Labor with an initial lead in 10 seats and the Liberals ahead in seven.
The exercise is flawed in many ways. It does not include pre-poll or postal votes, or votes cast at polling stations outside the fictional electorates.
It also cannot be assumed that people who cast their votes at a polling place in a particular electorate actually live in that district.
Finally, the creation of single-member electorates could lead to local issues having a strong influence on voters, perhaps even the election of popular local independent or minor party MLAs.
But it does give an indication what single-member electorate voting might look like.
John Warhurst, emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University, said that while single-member electoral systems often returned majority governments, they could also elect hung parliaments.
''You might get an independent, and with evenly balanced major parties there's always the chance you'd have one individual holding the balance of power,'' Professor Warhurst said. ''It's not out of the question that in an inner-northern electorate you'd get a Green.''
Canberrans voted at a referendum in 1992 to adopt the Hare-Clark voting system.
A guide to the fictional electorates: Snow: leading business family; Kid: the Canberra Milk Kid; Guy: TV’s Magnet Mart Guy; Follett: former chief minister Rosemary Follet; Carnell: former chief minister Kate Carnell; Stanhope: former chief minister Jon Stanhope; Meninga: former rugby league star and (briefly) one-time political aspirant Mal Meninga; Halligan: author Marion Halligan; Tonguey: former Raiders captain Alan Tongue; Larkham: former Brumbies Player Steve Larkham; Chan: movie star Jackie Chan; Jackson: Australia’s greatest female basketballer Lauren Jackson; DAAS: The Doug Anthony All Stars; Schmidt: Nobel prize winning astronomer Brian Schmidt; Hird: AFL legend James Hird; Deek: runner, sports administrator Robert De Castella; Smith: photographer Heide Smith.