Voting Below The Line In The Senate Is Actually A Piece Of Piss Now, And Here’s How To Do It

We know that pretty much the best thing about any election is the sausage sizzle, and the worst thing is voting on the massive Senate ballot sheet with about a thousand candidates on it.

Previously your two options for voting on it have been to just give your vote to whichever party you like best and let them dish out your preferences for you — Above The Line voting — or putting a number in the box in every single one of the 100+ candidates, or voting Below The Line.

Reforms introduced for the 2016 election made it heaps easier for you to actually have your say though, canning the requirement for below the line voting to go all the way through every single candidate.

Now it’s super easy to vote below the line, with a minimum of 12 numbers to be put in (although you can still number them all if you really want to).

Take this blank Victorian upper house ballot from 2016:

Looks pretty daunting, with 116 candidates.

But once you fill out the 12 you need, it looks like this:

Above the line voting has changed too — now you have to put in a minimum of six preferences along the top if you want your vote to count.

That looks like this once completed:

That's it. It really is that easy!

So if you want to have your voice — and your vote — heard, you've got the power.

Good luck on Saturday, and enjoy your democracy snag!

We asked Triple M listeners what they would do if they were PM for a day.

LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS HERE:

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