Randomising is an improvement on how we did it before 1984 – which was by alphabetical order of surname. Parties preferred “Andersons” and “Brownes” in those days!

When someone numbers 1, 2, 3, etc all the way down the ballot, that’s called a “donkey vote”. It is a valid vote – but not a very thoughtful one.

So do donkey voters give candidates at the top of the ballot an advantage?

Yes – topping the ballot is worth about 1 percentage point. Maybe a little more in electorates with younger voters and where fluency in English is lower.

That’s according to research by academics Amy King and Andrew Leigh – the same Andrew Leigh who is now a federal Labor MP.

If you think this is unfair, there is an alternative – called “Robson rotation”. In Robson rotation, the order of candidates rotates so a random ballot paper could have any candidate at the top of the paper. Liberal Senator James McGrath has pushed unsuccessfully for Robson rotation to be used in House of Representatives elections.

When there is a risk of confusion, the advantage of coming at the top of the ballot may be greater than 1 percentage point. In 2013, there were 45 columns on the NSW Senate voting paper – and the “Liberal Democrats” minor party drew first place. They won 9.5% of the vote, and a Senate seat for Senator David Leyonhjelm. Some of those voters likely saw “Liberal” and assumed it was the Liberal Party.

Unfortunately, the major parties responded with heavy-handed restrictions on party names, including a ban on ‘frivolous’ party names, instead of finding a middle ground. As I said at the time: “Words like ‘liberal’, ‘labour’ and ‘green’ describe ideologies and interests found across multiple parties, not just the parties that got there first. Australia has a long history of splinter parties, like the Democratic Labor Party and the Liberal Movement, whose names represent their background and concerns.”