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Robson Rotation is an Australian term for the practice of rotating the order of
candidate A candidate, or nominee, is a prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position. For example, one can be a candidate for membership in a group (sociology), group or election to an offic ...
s' names during the printing of the ballot papers for an
election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...
, so that the advantage of being listed near the start of the ballot is spread equally among all candidates. Such an advantage is particularly strong in elections in Australia, where the combination of
single transferable vote The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vot ...
and
compulsory voting Compulsory voting, also called universal civic duty voting or mandatory voting, is the requirement that registered voters participate in an election. As of January 2023, 21 countries have compulsory voting laws. Law enforcement in those countries ...
leads many politically apathetic voters to cast a " donkey vote" ranking the candidates in the order in which they are listed. Robson Rotation, first used in the
Tasmanian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or Lower House, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of Tasmania in Australia. The other is the Tasmanian Legislative Council, Legislative Council or Upper House. It sits in Parliament House, Hobart, Parliament Hou ...
in the 1980 Denison by-election, is named after Neil Robson, then Liberal member for Bass. It was adopted in
Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory until 1938, is an internal States and territories of Australia, territory of Australia. Canberra, the capital city of Australia, is situated within the territory, an ...
elections in 1995.ACT Electoral Commission - Ballot Papers for the Legislative Assembly
/ref> Traditionally, every ballot paper in an election is identical, with the candidates' names and their party groups (if any) in the same order. Within the party or group ticket, the order of their candidates' names is decided by the group. The order of the candidates or groups on the ballot is now usually determined by lot, by the authority running the election, although alphabetical order by surname was formerly used for elections contested by individual candidates. Having all ballot papers the same can give a slight advantage to the candidate or group listed at the top, or top left, of the ballot paper (depending on the format of the paper) because they will attract a donkey vote. Donkey voters number the preferences on their ballots from left to right and/or top to bottom, purely in the order of the candidates' names and groups on the ballot. Such voters are a feature of voting systems which require people to express their degree of preference for every candidate or group, by numbering them in preferential order, or have their vote declared invalid. While donkey votes may only form a small percentage of votes cast, they could affect the result in a close contest. The more candidates there are on the ballot paper, the greater the donkey vote is likely to be. To eliminate any donkey vote advantage, the Robson Rotation system requires ballot papers to be printed in equal-sized batches, with each batch having a different candidate's name appearing at prescribed positions in the party columns on those ballots. Consequently, there are several possible
permutation In mathematics, a permutation of a set can mean one of two different things: * an arrangement of its members in a sequence or linear order, or * the act or process of changing the linear order of an ordered set. An example of the first mean ...
s of where candidates' names appear on the various versions of the ballot paper. Although that doesn't eliminate donkey voting, it spreads its effect more or less equally among all the candidates standing for election.


Kromkowski rotation in Indiana

A similar kind of ballot rotation was introduced in St. Joseph County, Indiana, in the 1970s. The method, used for both printed ballots and lever-operated machine voting, was developed and introduced by Aloysius J. Kromkowski, the head of the election commission, and one of the most popular elected officials (St. Joseph County Clerk until term limited and St. Joseph County Treasurer until term limited). Every precinct had alphabetically shifted ballots. For example, in precinct 1, names on the ballot would be in standard alphabetical order. In precinct 2, names on the ballot would start with the second alphabetically-ordered candidate and the first ordered would be shifted to the bottom, and so on. It was later codified into law via ICbr>3-11-14-11


Notes

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External links

*http://www.prsa.org.au/viclc/submission/sub/node15.html *http://www.prsa.org.au/tasearob.htm Elections in Tasmania Ballots Parliament of the Australian Capital Territory 1979 neologisms Electoral reform in Australia Local elections in Indiana