🇦🇺 Australia

The party or coalition that commands the confidence of the House forms government and its leader becomes prime minister; a majority requires 76 of the 150–151 House seats. Australia is distinctive for two features that shape every election: compulsory voting, in force federally since 1924, which pushes turnout above 90% and produces broadly representative results; and full-preference instant-runoff voting in the House, under which voters rank every candidate so that the eventual winner of each single-member electorate has majority support after preferences are distributed. The Senate is elected separately by proportional single transferable vote, with each state returning twelve senators (six elected at each ordinary half-Senate election for six-year terms) and each territory two; this proportionality gives minor parties and independents a far larger presence in the upper house, where the balance of power usually rests outside the major parties. Elections are run on a Saturday by the independent, non-partisan Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), which publishes official results at results.aec.gov.au.

Figures from official electoral authorities — see Data & Methodology. Last updated 2026-11-02.