The preferential system works well at a one time vote. I am sure you know the drill as well as I. Number the boxes starting with a 1 in your first preference. As the votes are counted, the one with the least votes gets the preferences (of the voter) distributed. By and large an unwieldly approach, but required for a single time vote where you are looking for a clear cut majority.

On the other hand you could have a non compulsory system where one candidate gets 40% of the vote and the others get the remaining candidates 60% and the candidate who gets the biggest vote is declared the winner. In this case you have a winner where 60% of the population didn’t vote for that winner. (This more or less happened when George W Bush won his first election…. 50% of the voters did not turn out — it went down to the wire with the remaining 50% of voters splitting their voting half and half… — in this case the US got an ‘appointed’ President, (GWB was efffectively appointed by his brother, Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida, ) a President, where an astounding 75% of the electorate did NOT vote for. (Still that’s their system and you get the politicians you vote for.)

But some countries don’t have a preferential system and go to the polls with the result that there is no clear cut winner gaining 50% of the vote first time around. Lets say there are 3 candidates, first poll — 40%, 35% 25% . The loser from the previous poll drops out and a second poll is taken. This is a time consuming and expensive process.

So, to me voting out the least preferred candidates until two final candidates are ready to be voted for makes sense, because at the start of the process it is a definite who the politicans do NOT want as a HoS. It also stops the “shennanigans” on allocating preferences.

I disagree that the republicans couldn’t agree on an election process.

The Republican Convention was a fulfillment of a political promise made by avowed monarchist John Howard. By inviting monarchists to a republican convention he knew it would stymie the whole process. The monarchists knew that the people wanted a direct say in the election and they ensured that the option that was least palatable to the electorate — where the electorate had no say in the selection process of a HoS — was presented. The electorate was quite mature in rejecting this. The upshot is — the people want a say.

The system of putting them all up in a Referendum has merit, but could be risky. (If I recall we did that when we changed our National Anthem from “God Save the Queen” to “Advance Australia Fair” in 1974. “Waltzing Matilda” was also a choice on the ballot).

In doing so you run the risk of getting the “direct election model” which has major political ramifications. I have no doubt that if this preferential method had been selected at the Republican convention, we would have been a republic now and with a Direct Election for the an Australian as head of state.

The method outlined on this website is a compromise between “Direct Election” and “Bi-Partisan” method, also bringing into play the States and Territiories

1. The candidates that come from each of the states (and territories) are nominated and selected by the people.
2. The HoS is selected by the politicians from the candidates given to them by the people.

Thanks for your comment

Nonetheless, it’s well regarded that the reason the 1999 referendum was lost was because republicans couldn’t agree on the election process of the prospective president.

We use an exhaustive preferential voting system in Australian state and federal lower houses, so why not in a republic referendum?

Simplified example:

[4] Australia remains as a monarchy
[2] McGarvie model
[3] Direct election model
[1] Bi-partisan model
[5] Possibly some other pro-monarchy changes to the constitution

I’m not sure weather or not there is a constitutional restriction on using the preferential voting system for a referendum or weather it’s at the discretion of the government at the time, but WE USE IT BECAUSE IT’S THE MOST FAIR AND MOST ACCURATE METHOD. LET’S USE IT IN VOTING IN A REPUBLIC REFERENDUM ALSO.