How do preferences work? Can how-to-vote cards affect elections?

Most Australians will be familiar with running the polling-place gauntlet on election day, the vast hordes of smiling volunteers thrusting how-to-vote (HTV) cards their way.  Equally familiar will be pundits and journalists talking about how parties “preferencing’ others will or did have a certain effect on the results.

Unfortunately for less politically engaged viewers, media folks often neglect to explain that preferencing is just shorthand for what a party decides to put on its HTV cards. Likewise, it’s often not explained why or how this might matter or not.

As a corrective, here are a few basic principles about how HTV cards work in Australian elections today.

Major-party voters are more obedient

The first thing to keep in mind is that major party HTV cards are generally far more impactful than those of minor parties.

About 45% of those who put a “1” next to a major party candidate also number all of the remaining boxes according to that candidate’s wishes, electoral expert Kevin Bonham told Crikey.

There are several reasons for this higher degree of adherence. One is that, if you focus on the nation as a whole rather than just particular swing seats where minor parties may concentrate their efforts, major parties simply have more people handing out cards. Another is that major party voters are generally more “obedient”, Bonham said.

“There are still a fair few around who are rusted on to one major party or another, [although] not as many as there were,” he explained. “Whereas, an independent voter or a voter for a minor party is more likely to be thinking for themselves.”

Unsurprisingly, the long-term decline in major party loyalty has also led to a decline in HTV card adherence.

In the 2022 election, only 31% said they had followed a HTV card,  down from 56% in 1996, according to the Australian National University’s Australian Election Study.

Where HTV cards are most impactful

Because of this, HTV cards are far more impactful in tight races where a major party candidate is knocked out of the running and the preferences of those more obedient major party voters are distributed.

For example, the influence of preferences from One Nation and other right-of-centre minor parties is fuelling expectations that Peter Dutton could snatch some outer-suburban Labor heartland seats.

And in tight Labor–Greens contests, Coalition HTV cards can be decisive. A textbook example is when Greens leader Adam Bandt first won his seat from Labor’s Lindsay Tanner in 2010, electoral expert Peter Brent said.

“If the Libs had preferenced Labor in Melbourne in 2010, Labor probably would’ve won,” Brent said. While the Coalition started recommending that its voters put Labor ahead of the Greens on HTV cards in 2013, Bandt’s increasing primary vote has made his position “indestructible”, Brent says.

However, the same isn’t true for the three Queensland seats the Greens won in 2022, two of which they won from the Coalition. “In those three Brisbane seats the Greens won, if Labor had made it to the two-candidate-preferred count against either Greens or LNP, Labor would’ve won, thanks to the HTV cards of both Greens and LNP,” Brent said.

If, on May 3, there’s a swing against the Greens back towards the LNP in Brisbane or Ryan, Labor’s preference recommendations could be significant. Likewise, if there’s a swing against Max-Chandler Mather back towards Labor in Griffith, Coalition HTV cards could prove decisive.

A case in point: Macnamara

Brent also said HTV cards could be crucial in the Victorian electorates of Wills and Macnamara, previously safe Labor seats where the Greens have been making ground.

Let’s consider the standoff in Macnamara between Labor’s Josh Burns, the Coalition’s Benson Saulo and the Greens’ Sonya Semmens.

While the Liberals enjoy a relatively high primary vote in Macnamara, they’ve been consistently kept out of power by preferences from Greens or Labor voters. If the Greens candidate slips into third place, the preferences of their voters would give Labor the boost needed to win. My money would be on this happening again if Semmens drops into third.

Likewise, if Saulo drops to third, your correspondent presumes that most Coalition voters are still going to put Labor ahead of the Greens, as per their party’s HTV card recommendations and general political orientation. Thus, if the Liberals or the Greens come third, Burns will be elected.

The question is what happens if Burns drops to third, a possibility given the seat has the second-highest Jewish constituency in Australia and the significant anger there about Labor’s attitude to Israel and its stance on combating antisemitism.

Labor has announced it won’t be handing out HTV cards advising voters on how to direct their preferences, which may lead some of these aforementioned “rusted-ons” to not put the Greens above the Liberals as they normally might.

If the Liberals end up winning Macnamara, expect Labor’s HTV card decision to get some of the credit.

Less likely to take a cue from party HQ

In most federal seats, Labor and Coalition candidates still receive the first- and second-highest number of primary votes, so their preferences won’t be distributed. This means their HTV card suggestions will not affect the outcome, save for helping a few people correctly cast a valid vote.

While minor party preferences can make a difference in Labor–Coalition races, this isn’t as attributable to HTV cards because, as mentioned above, minor party voters are generally less inclined to take cues from party HQ.

“Greens supporters are believed to be much less obedient than major party supporters, as they tend to be politically engaged and already firm in their views of the major parties,” Brent says.

They are also particularly attuned to any ideologically inconsistent preference suggestions, Bonham says.

“Voters are especially likely to resist how-to-vote cards if the preference given is illogical and is a result of a weird deal rather than parties having things in common.”

“If the Greens recommend voters preference the Liberals, most of their voters still wouldn’t do it.”

However, Brent says that Greens’ HTV cards could still be decisive in very, very marginal contests.

In seats that Labor won in 2022 with two-party-preferred support levels hovering around the 50% mark, Greens HTV cards may have made the difference, and they could do so again in 2025, he told Crikey.

Bonham says the Greens’ HTV card follow rate is about 15% on average, while some of the really minor parties’ is only a few per cent.

“How-to-vote decisions of obscure parties have very little impact because they have few votes and a low follow rate,” he says.

So while Clive Palmer might be making a bit of ruckus about Trumpet of Patriot cards supposedly being “interfered with” — after it was revealed that some suggested voters put teal candidates above those from major parties — the result of this alleged interference is unlikely to have much impact at the ballot box.