One vote, one value

In Australia, one vote, one value is a democratic principle widely valued in Australia and applied in electoral laws governing redistributions of electoral divisions of the House of Representatives whereby the divisions have the same number of enrolled voters, within a specified percentage of variance. The electoral laws of the Commonwealth for the House of Representatives and all states follows the principle with some exceptions.

For the House of Representatives, the number of enrolled voters in each Division cannot vary by more than 10% from the average across a state or territory, nor can the number of voters vary by more than 3.5% from the average projected enrolment three-and-a-half years into the future.^[1] However, due to various reasons, larger seats like Fenner contain more than double the electors of smaller seats like Lingiari.

While all states (other than Tasmania) historically had some form of malapportionment, electoral reform in recent decades resulted in an electoral legislation and policy framework based on "one vote one value". However, in the Western Australian and Queensland Legislative Assemblies, seats covering areas greater than 100,000 square kilometres (38,600 sq mi) may be drawn with fewer electors than the general tolerance would allow.^[2][3]

The 1988 Australian referendum included a proposal which aimed to enshrine the principle within the Australian Constitution.^[4] It was not carried.

See also

• Elections in Australia
• One man, one vote
• Playmander

References