Some pre-election polls are showing a historic tally of seats for Labor. Yet, at the same time, less people are voting for the major parties.

How can Labor be set to win big, while its primary vote drops? The answer lies in Australia’s undemocratic voting system, which works to funnel small parties’ preferences to the Coalition and Labor.

Because all seats are geographically based, millions of voters are disenfranchised if the party they voted for does not win in the electorate they live in. It doesn’t need to be this way; other countries use proportional voting systems that ensure the number of MPs elected from each party is broadly representative of how the population voted.

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Countries with a proportional voting system will........

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