Australian Year 10 Civics Practice Test

The main idea is that the two houses use different voting methods to reflect how they represent people. The House is elected from local, single-member districts using preferential voting. Voters rank candidates; if no one gets a majority on the first count, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their preferences go to the remaining candidates, continuing until someone has a majority. Because each district has only one winner, the overall outcome tends to reflect the distribution of votes across districts, with preferences shaping who finally wins.

The Senate, on the other hand, uses proportional representation through a single transferable vote across each state. Voters also rank candidates, but there are multiple seats to fill in each state, so a quota is used to determine winners. When a candidate reaches the quota, their surplus votes are transferred to the next preferences, and when candidates are eliminated, their votes transfer as well. This process produces seats roughly in proportion to the voters’ support for each party, which is why smaller parties can gain representation and the Senate tends to be more diverse.

So, the House uses preferential voting in single-member districts, while the Senate uses proportional representation via the single transferable vote.