In time for the Australian federal election in May 2019, I’ve produced a revised, updated, and totally redrawn version of my perpetually viral comic about preferential voting from 2013, featuring Dennis the Election Koala and Ken the Voting Dingo.
This time around I’d like to add a much-requested sequel dealing with voting for the federal Senate, if I can manage it. (You can help that to happen by supporting me via Ko-fi.) Anyway, the whole project now has a permanent home under this link, so please check it out and share the page with everyone you’ve ever seen.
The comic has been popular among non-Australians too, who are interested in alternative electoral systems — especially people from countries that use first-past-the-post systems. What we call ‘preferential voting‘ in Australia is usually called ‘instant-runoff voting‘ in formal contexts, ‘ranked choice voting‘ in North America, and ‘the alternative vote‘ in the UK. Now you know!
Incidentally, to elect the Australian federal Senate, we use single transferable vote (STV) proportional representation (PR).