## Facts

- Western Australia’s electoral laws created substantial disparities in elector numbers between metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts and regions.
- Legislative Assembly districts were zoned so metropolitan seats were drawn around roughly 23,000 electors (±15%), while non-metropolitan seats were drawn around roughly 12,000 electors (±15%).
- Legislative Council elections used six multi-member regions (three metropolitan, three non-metropolitan) with significantly different enrollments (e.g., one metropolitan region had more than triple the enrolled electors of a remote region).
- Plaintiffs were members of Western Australia’s Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council who alleged the districting scheme produced “gross malapportionment” and unequal voting power.
- Plaintiffs brought an original proceeding in the High Court of Australia seeking declarations that key parts of the State’s electoral distribution legislation were invalid.

## Issues

1. Whether constitutional requirements that representatives be “directly chosen by the people” imply a judicially enforceable rule of voter equality (“one vote, one value”) applicable to State electoral systems.
2. Whether Western Australia’s constitutional arrangements and the concept of representative government require substantially equal voting power across State electorates.
3. Whether severe malapportionment, without more, is inconsistent with the minimum constitutional requirements of representative government.

## Decision

- The High Court, by majority, rejected the challenge and upheld the validity of Western Australia’s electoral distribution laws.
- The majority held that “directly chosen by the people” does not mandate numerical equality of electorates and does not constitutionalize “one vote, one value.”
- The majority relied on prior authority rejecting a constitutional requirement of equal numbers of electors per division and declined to impose court-set thresholds for permissible deviation.
- The Court treated the degree of permissible inequality as primarily a matter for legislative judgment and political accountability, so long as elections remain genuine popular elections.
- In dissent (and in substantial part), Toohey J and Gaudron J would have derived stronger equality constraints from representative government, viewing large disparities in voting power as potentially undermining popular choice.

## Legal Principles

- Constitutional text requiring representatives to be “directly chosen by the people” secures genuine popular election and a broad franchise, but does not require equal voting power measured by equal electorate size.
- The existence of representative government does not, by itself, supply a freestanding, justiciable rule that each vote must carry equal weight across districts.
- Structural and historical features tolerating unequal representation are inconsistent with reading strict electoral equality into constitutional requirements.
- Courts may recognize minimum qualitative requirements for representative institutions, but detailed districting standards and acceptable degrees of malapportionment are not readily judicially manageable and are generally left to legislatures.

## Conclusion

The High Court upheld Western Australia’s malapportioned electoral arrangements, concluding that representative government and the requirement of direct popular choice do not constitutionally entrench “one vote, one value,” and that districting inequalities short of negating genuine elections are for legislatures rather than courts to resolve.


McGinty v. Western Australia, 186 C.L.R. 140 (High Ct. Austl. 1996)