election-law_gl-digest    Monday, February 11 2002    Volume 01 : Number 137




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Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 09:43:12 -0500
From: Rick Pildes <rpildes@UMICH.EDU>
Subject: Users of "The Law of Democracy"

As those of you using the Second Edition of The Law of Democracy casebook 
(2001) no doubt have discovered, the Table of Cases and Index to the book, 
put together by Foundation Press, became badly disorganized during the last 
stage of the production process.  We have put together an electronic file 
of a corrected Table of Cases; anyone who wants that corrected Table for 
their own use or to distribute to their classes should email me.  I will 
send it out as an attachment right away.  Foundation will republish the 
book for next semester with corrected versions of these items.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Best,
Rick Pildes


Rick Pildes				
Professor of Law, New York University School of Law	
40 Washington Sq. South
Room 322-B
New York, NY 10012-1099
also reachable at:  rick.pildes@nyu.edu
o:  212 998-6377
fax:  212 995-4341
h:  212 254-4994					

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Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 10:10:40 +1000
From: Graeme Orr <g.orr@mailbox.gu.edu.au>
Subject: Compton & Donkeys

The Compton case is a doozy.  Unsurprisingly, especially with compulsory,
preferential voting, ballot position has long been an issue in Australia.
It even gave birth to a breed: 'Donkey Voters'.  The donkey (no reflection
on US Democrats!) attended the polls dutifully, but blindly voted 1,2,3 etc
down the ballot.  It was not fully scientifically studied:  but its effect
was estimated at up to 2%  (parties recommend 'how to vote', so scrutineers
could guesstimate the donkey vote in seats where no party happened to
recommend a vote straight down the ballot). One influential conservative
party, the DLP, allegedly took advantage of donkeys, by standing candidates
with surnames close to the start of the alphabet.  There were even 'reverse
donkey votes' (numbering from bottom to top). The problem was exacerbated
in the Senate, where upwards of 70 candidates could stand.  Today, ballot
order is no longer alphabetical but random.     But the most important
regulatory development was 'Robson rotation', where there is no single
ballot order - candidate names are rotated, and equal shares of such
ballots randomly distributed.  Robson rotation has only really caught on in
Tasmania, where it was invented (and PR is strong). Readers may also know
of experiments with circular ballot papers. 

There has been no litigation on the issue however.  Indeed generally, the
statute law forbids a petition based merely on an 'error' in ballot
ordering - but if fraud were involved, there would be an interesting clash
between the broad 'common law' of elections (Woodward v Sarsons) and the
idea that the statute law forms a tight Code.

Graeme Orr

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End of election-law_gl-digest V1 #137
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