Posted Jul 20, 2010, 9:27 AM UTC
It's not a completely accurate statement, but it's approximately what happens, and in practice it is what happens. So I think "lies" is a bit strong.
Your misreading it. The lie you think you see is "candidates who finish outside the top two on first preferences are eliminated", but that is not what it says. The final result of the vote count after the distribution of preferences (two party preferred) includes only two parties; all the others have been eliminated, and had their second (and possibly also third and fourth etc.) preferences counted.
It is incredibly disappointing to see such a misrepresentation of preferential voting. No wonder people are so confused.
Also hogwash, since it only affects how to vote cards.
It's things like this that make people think they dislike the political system, because they don't understand it and it's misrepresented. This isn't unlike people complaining because "they didn't vote for Julia Gillard". Hell, they didn't vote for Rudd either (unless they're in Griffith).