Australia was the first nation to invent itself through the ballot box and has become a country renowned for democratic innovations, from the secret ballot to adult suffrage and Saturday elections. Many of these reforms are now benchmarks of democracy. Yet the equity of Australia’s electoral process continues to be challenged. Does Australia have full, free and fair elections?

The authors of this informative, entertaining volume tell of political forces and personalities which have shaped Australia’s electoral system. They describe how Australia became a pacesetter, why it experimented so much, and whether the experiments have worked.

They go on to consider what could and should be done and the major modern challenges. Are party politics and pre-selections a corrupting influence? What is the impact of a mobile and scattered population? How widespread are the "rorts"? Could we have a "Florida" down under?

Elections: Full, Free & Fair is an edited volume on Australian electoral history and innovations, providing a broad commentary on continuing democratic challenges. It is a timely and well-researched book on democracy and electoral justice, covering issues which are topical and important.

The project was supported by the ANU, the Australian Electoral Commission, Old Parliament House, and the Parliamentary Education Office.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: Pacemakers for the world? - Marian Sawer
CHAPTER 2: A wider field in a new country: Chartism in colonial Australia - Paul A Pickering
CHAPTER 3: The story of the ‘Australian ballot’ - Mark McKenna
CHAPTER 4: Rights without seats: The puzzle of women’s legislative recruitment - Diane Sainsbury
CHAPTER 5: Preferential voting and its political consequences - Ben Reilly
CHAPTER 6: Inventing Hare-Clark: The model arithmetocracy - Judith Homeshaw
CHAPTER 7: Democratic experiments with Constitution-making - Helen Irving
CHAPTER 8: ‘A great leveller’: Compulsory voting - Lisa Hill
CHAPTER 9: Institutionalising electoral integrity - Colin Hughes
CHAPTER 10: Delivering democracy to Indigenous Australians - Will Sanders
CHAPTER 11: Exporting expertise in electoral administration - Michael Maley
CHAPTER 12: Australian democracy in comparative perspective - Arend Lijphart
CHAPTER 13: Confidence in Australian democracy - Pippa Norris
CHAPTER 14: Political parties, partisanship and electoral governance - James Jupp and Marian Sawer

Notes on Contributors
Tables, Figures, Illustrations
Abbreviations
Index

"Did you know, ‘In 1832, during a by-election in Montreal, the army was called in and three people were shot dead. As a result the House of Assembly of Lower Canada adopted a bill depriving women of the right to vote, believing that polling stations had become too dangerous for the weaker sex’....
John Ralston Saul said ‘democracy is a sentence and voting just the punctuation’, but I think this book demonstrates that voting, who votes and how they vote is the demonstration of how we envisage our democracy."
-- Inkwell, January 2002

"Professor Sawer’s research is widely respected. This collection, published by the Federation Press, makes an important contribution to our understanding of current thinking not only on Australian democracy but also in such areas as constitution-making and electoral assistance abroad. It is a frank and thought-provoking set of essays...
Australia’s contribution to the international scene is one of the strongest features of this collection....
One can heartily recommend this book..."
-- Representation, Vol 38 (4), 2002