The New South Wales Legislative Council consists of 42 members who represent the whole state in parliament. At each State election 21 members are elected to serve two terms of parliament, that is, a maximum of 8 years.

The candidates for a Legislative Council election are the same for the whole state.

The method of voting for the Legislative Council is known as optional preferential proportional representation and is prescribed in the sixth schedule to The Constitution Act 1902.

The method of voting

The names of the candidates are shown on the ballot paper. If they are endorsed by a registered political party their affiliation with that party is also shown.

A group must have at least 15 candidates before it can have a group voting square above the thick black line. Candidates not included in a group are shown in a column on the extreme right of the ballot paper. These are referred to as ungrouped candidates.

The group or party determines the order of its candidates within the group, but the order in which the groups or parties appear on the ballot paper is determined by a draw conducted by the Electoral Commissioner who is the Returning Officer for the election.

You may vote in one of two ways:

Above the line

You may vote by placing the number 1 in one of the group voting squares located above the thick black line on the ballot paper. This will record a first preference vote for the first candidate in that group with the second and subsequent preferences going to all other candidates in that group.

You may then allocate preferences to more groups by putting the numbers 2, 3 etc. in other group voting squares.

Below the line

When voting below the line, you can select the order of preferences by placing the numbers '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15' in the squares next to the names of 15 candidates in order of their preference for them. You can vote for additional candidates by placing consecutive numbers beginning with the number '16' in the squares next to the names of those additional candidates in order of their preference for them. You must vote for at least 15 candidates when voting below the line.