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If I vote for an independent, won’t it split the vote or have an unintended outcome?

Answer

In Australia’s preferential voting system, you can give your first preference to an independent, and if they are not successful, your vote transfers to the candidate to whom you give your second preference. Hence there is no risk in giving your first preference to an independent, unlike in countries that have a ‘first past the post’ system, where the concept of ‘splitting the vote’ does apply. There’s a good explanation of preferential voting in this video from The Guardian.