You'll hear a lot about preferences during the Queensland election campaign.
In Queensland, you have to number every box on the ballot for your vote to count — a change that first took affect at the last state election in 2017.
Say you're voting in a seat with five candidates.
After the first count of votes, the candidate with the lowest vote is eliminated.
Anyone who put that person at #1 will see their vote redirected to the person they put as #2.
That process continues until somebody hits 50 per cent of the vote, winning the seat.
Political parties don't get to decide where your vote goes — only you can do that.
But they can provide a bit of a how-to guide, suggesting how to number the candidates.
That's called a how-to-vote card.
They're the fliers party volunteers hand out at the polling booths on election day.
The parties make a decision about how to direct their supporters to number candidates.
Those decisions are all about parties trying to maximise their chances of winning seats, or make it more difficult for their opponents to win enough seats to form government.
Voters don't have to follow any party's how-to vote card.
Just number every box, based on your choice.
And be prepared — a record 12 political parties are running candidates in this state election, and there's 597 candidates all up.
So the ballot for your seat could be bigger than usual.
The Opposition fired the first shot across the bow in this election — just before the writs were issued, the LNP announced it would preference Labor last in every seat across Queensland.
This meant they were telling voters to number even the Greens higher.
Katter's Australian Party and One Nation have done a preference deal, agreeing to do a one-two swap with each other on how-to-vote cards, and place the Greens last.
Labor hasn't said how it will preference as yet — but the party said it always places One Nation last.
