Random number generator to determine candidate positions on ballot paper on Thursday
Candidates will discover on Thursday their position on the ballot paper in October's election, although with a random ballot paper it is not clear there is any advantage to be had.
The names of more than 100 candidates expected to stand for the hotly contested ACT election will be announced at lunchtime.
ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green, who will announce candidate names and draw the ballot-paper order on Thursday. Photo: Graham Tidy
With an extra eight seats up for grabs as the Parliament swells to 25 members, this election offers the best opportunity to get elected of any election since self-government. If every incumbent keeps their seat other than the two retiring members, there will still be 10 new faces.
To ensure no advantage from ballot position, the ACT Electoral Commission will use a random number generator to decide the order in which the parties appear. Independents will all be on the right-hand side of the ballot paper – in one column if there are up to five independents, and spreading over two or more columns if there are more.
ACT Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green with an electronic poling booth. Photo: Rohan Thomson
Labor campaign director Matt Byrne said there was probably a very small benefit in being in one of the earlier columns, but because there was no above-the-line voting it was not as pronounced in the Senate.
Liberal campaign director Daniel Clode said order on the ballot paper was "not a huge deal". If all 12 registered parties fielded candidates in every electorate it could make more of a difference, given the potential to create confusion or difficulty finding a single party among so many. But he didn't anticipate more than about six parties in each electorate and said in that case it would be easy enough for voters "to figure out who's who", he said.
Being in the first column made no more than a marginal difference and not enough to affect an outcome, he said.
"We're not going to bed tonight saying our prayers over that," he said on Wednesday." We will be comfortable in column F and comfortable in column A."
The Electoral Commission will also use its random number generator to determine the starting order for candidates within each column. The starting order could bring an advantage since it will also become the sample ballot paper that the Electoral Commission uses on its website and in an election day newspaper advertisement.
But 60 different versions of the ballot paper are printed for each electorate so if there are five party candidates all five of them get a turn on top of their party's list and the order of the rest is mixed up.
Electoral Commissioner Phillip Green said if all 12 registered parties stood candidates and there were two columns of independents and ungrouped candidates, the ballot paper would be about 57cm wide.
That is not expected to happen, though, because one party, Vote Canberra, has already pulled out, and other parties are standing in only some of the electorates.
Labor and the Liberals are standing a full ticket of 25 candidates for the 25-member Legislative Assembly. The Greens are standing 15.
The Liberal Democrats are fielding 17 candidates. Like Canberra is standing 10. Richard Farmer's Canberra Community Voters is standing eight. The Sex Party has named two so far, as has Animal Justice. Sustainable Australia says it will stand 10.
Much of the attention is on the Belconnen seat of Ginninderra, where as many as 10 independents have indicated plans to stand. With five from Canberra Community Voters, two from Like Canberra, two from Sustainable Australia and 13 from Labor, Liberals and the Greens, with more to come, the voters of Belconnen could be choosing from more than 30 candidates.
Mr Green said there were 283,162 electors enrolled to vote, 26,500 more than last time. Each of the five electorates has more than 50,000 voters, ranging from 53,614 in the Belconnen seat of Ginninderra, to 58,895 in the Gungahlin seat of Yerrabi.