EDITORIAL: Legalise Cannabis and Daylight Savings candidates prove Upper House voting system must change

A Legalise Cannabis Party candidate from Perth is on track to represent our South West electorate in the Upper House. That’s democracy, you might say — the people have spoken. Well, sort of. Under WA’s Upper House voting system, cannabis activist Sophia Moermond has likely earned the right to be an MP. But she has done so on the back of a convoluted flow of preferences. As of 1pm yesterday, her party had 2.1 per cent of the initial vote in the South West, placing it below The Nationals WA, The Greens, and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers. But through preference flows, that figure had risen to 14.72 per cent, helping Ms Moermond leapfrog those three parties into a provisional seat in Parliament. That result — and another shock result involving the Daylight Saving Party in the Mining and Pastoral electorate — have sparked renewed calls for voting reform. In WA, Upper House voters can number every single box below the line or place a “1” in any box above the line, triggering that party’s group voting ticket. A group voting ticket is a list of preferences lodged by each party in each electorate. Liberal South West candidate Steve Thomas wants to switch to the Federal Senate voting system, so that single-issue parties can no longer “game the system to get the sort of power they shouldn’t have”. Under the Federal system, introduced in 2016, voters can number boxes 1 to 6 above the line or 1 to 12 below the line, abolishing group voting tickets and reducing the odds of micro-parties winning seats despite a low vote. Clearly, something has to change.