To be fair

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand the Senate ballot paper. The structure is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of the Single Transferable Vote most of the details will go over a typical voter’s head. There’s also Droop’s proportionality criterion, which is deftly woven into its details- the mechanism of counting draws heavily from Thomas Hare’s work, for instance. The psephologists understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these criteria, to realise that they’re not just democratic- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike the Single Transferable Vote truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the humour in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth)’s existential long title “An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Law relating to Parliamentary Elections and for other purposes,” which itself is a cryptic reference to the Barton government’s classic epics, the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 (Cth) and Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 (Cth). I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Antony Green’s genius methodology unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them.

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Mackerras pendulum tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It’s for the scrutineers’ eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they’re within 5 2PP percentage points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid