The results of this year's half-Senate election are all in so it's time to observe how our still relatively new Senate system performed at its second half-Senate test. For previous assessments see 2016 part one, 2016 part two and 2019 (single article). I have changed the title mainly so I am at liberty to add pointless fluff about candidates who finished last. On the agenda for this issue are: proportionality, blocked Senates, how dreadful this election would have been under Group Ticket Voting, winning vote shares (with a focus on Babet and Pocock), preferencing impacts, just-voting-1, exhaust, informals, below the lines, How to Vote cards, blank above the line boxes, and a special schadenfreude section at the bottom.
Senate voting was reformed in 2016 to remove the problems caused by preference harvesting under the old Group Ticket Voting system, under which Senators were being elected off very low vote shares as a result of networked preference deals and a system that coerced voters into sending their preferences to parties they did not support. This was not only discriminatory and wrong, but also a threat to the integrity of the electoral system because of the ease with which minor issues could cause a count to collapse. A great many alarmist predictions were made by defenders of the (no longer defensible) GTV system, and most of those have been debunked already. However in 2022 there are two new opportunities to test predictions about the new system. Firstly it is the first time we have had a Senate composed entirely of half-Senate election results. Secondly, it is the first time Labor has come to power in the House of Representatives under the new system.
