Donkey Vote

The term donkey vote originates in Australian electoral politics, where full preferential voting requires electors to rank every candidate on the ballot. A voter who simply writes "1" next to the topmost candidate, "2" next to the second, and so on to the bottom — without regard to party or policy — casts a donkey vote. The ballot remains formal and is counted in full, but the preferences reflect ballot position rather than political choice.

Donkey votes matter because they confer a small but measurable advantage on candidates listed at the top of the ballot. Australian studies have estimated the donkey-vote effect at roughly 1–2% of first-preference votes in lower-house contests, which can be decisive in marginal seats. To neutralise this, the Australian Electoral Commission has, since 1984, determined ballot order for House of Representatives and Senate elections by random draw rather than alphabetically — a reform recommended after research showed alphabetical listing systematically favoured candidates with surnames early in the alphabet.

The phenomenon is most associated with jurisdictions that combine compulsory voting with compulsory preferencing, notably Australia at federal and most state levels. Compulsion means some electors who would otherwise abstain instead fill out the ballot mechanically. Donkey voting is therefore often discussed alongside the informal vote (an invalid or blank ballot) as twin symptoms of disengaged participation under a compulsory regime.

Variants include the reverse donkey vote (numbering from bottom to top) and partial donkey votes, where a voter ranks their genuine first choice and then runs straight down the remaining candidates. Some parties have historically lobbied for favourable ballot positions, and "how-to-vote" cards distributed at polling places are partly designed to counteract position effects.

The concept is occasionally extended by analogy to other ranked-choice systems, such as Irish PR-STV or ranked-choice elections in US cities, though it is rarely a formal term of art outside Australia and New Zealand.