donkey vote
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.61 in modern English
21
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of casting a vote in an election using a preferential voting system, by specifying the candidates in the order in which they are listed on the ballot paper (i.e., by numbering the choices sequentially from top to bottom, ignoring what they represent).
Australian usage
noun
The act of casting a vote in an election using a preferential voting system, by specifying the candidates in the order in which they are listed on the ballot paper (i.e., by numbering the choices sequentially from top to bottom, ignoring what they represent).
Australian usage
Example Sentences
- "Examination of the 1984 and 1987 federal elections showed the donkey vote to be worth about 0.65% of the formal vote (Peetz 1989:469)."
- "This needs to be tempered somewhat: Voting systems that require electors to express preferences they may not in fact possess are susceptible to random effects such as the so-called donkey-vote phenomenon observed for federal elections in Australia, in which some electors simply number sequentially from 1 onward down the ballot paper."
- "The share of preferences going from the Progress Party to the Democrats was swollen, if not almost wholly accounted for, by donkey votes."
Etymology
Origin
Usage
Inflected Forms
donkey votes (plural)
donkey-vote (alternative)