Word.ws English Dictionary

donkey vote

donkey vote 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).

Noun

donkey vote (plural donkey votes)

  1. (Australia) 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).
    • 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).1993, John Craig, Australian Politics: A Source Book, page 178
    • 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...2000, Shaun Bowler, Elections in Australia, Ireland, and Malta Under the Single Transferable Vote, page 56
    1. (Australia) A vote so cast.
      • The share of preferences going from the Progress Party to the Democrats was swollen, if not almost wholly accounted for, by donkey votes.1979, Howard Rae Penniman, editor, The Australian National Elections of 1977, page 325

Forms of donkey vote

pluraldonkey votes
alternative formdonkey-vote

Origin of donkey vote

From donkey (“fool”) + vote, from donkeys often being depicted as clumsy and lacking intelligence (see ass). First attested in 1962.

Questions about donkey vote

What does donkey vote mean?
Donkey vote means 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).
What part of speech is donkey vote?
Donkey vote is a noun.
What is the plural of donkey vote?
The plural of donkey vote is donkey votes.

Words near donkey vote in the dictionary

  1. donkey shows
  2. donkey stone
  3. donkey stones
  4. donkey stool
  5. donkey stools
  6. donkey vote
  7. donkey voter
  8. donkey voters
  9. donkey votes
  10. donkey work
  11. donkey's

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: donkey vote (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 donkey vote.ogg.

Cite this entry: “donkey vote.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/donkey_vote. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.