in ordinary politics before now, since he finally had to register to vote as part of becoming eligible to be a candidate. And it's not clear to me that he'll actually still be a candidate when elections roll round, since he seems to have been representing a short visit to his mother as a time he was recently in permanent residence in Australia, which perhaps someone will challenge as pure blarney before all is said and done
But suppose he still is a candidate at election time: then Australia's preference voting scheme plays a role, and it has sometimes elected candidates who initially received only a tiny percent of the first preference votes. Each voter ranks all the candidates in order of preference, from first to last. Then the fun begins:
How the Senate votes are counted
To be elected .. a candidate needs .. a quota of the .. votes. The quota is calculated by dividing the .. number of .. ballot papers by one more than the number of Senators to be elected and then adding '1' to the result ... The ballot papers are sorted according to which candidate has received the number '1' preference ... Candidates who receive the quota ... of these first preference votes, are elected immediately. As a general rule, when a candidate is elected with a surplus .. that surplus is transferred before any exclusions are undertaken. Any surplus votes .. (i.e. votes in excess of the quota they needed), are transferred to the candidates who were the second choice of voters. Because it is not possible to determine which votes actually elected the candidate and which votes are surplus, all the elected candidate's ballot papers are transferred at a reduced rate ... As a result of .. transferring surplus votes, other candidates may be elected. If all surplus votes from elected candidates are transferred and there are still some unfilled positions, further counting is undertaken ... Starting with the candidate who has the lowest number of votes, unelected candidates are excluded ...Their ballot papers are distributed to the remaining candidates ... If any of the remaining candidates obtain a quota through this process of distribution, they are declared elected. Their surplus (if any) is transferred before any other candidates are excluded. The above process continue until all Senate positions are filled ... It is some weeks before all Senators are declared elected ...
Of course, even if elected, he would face some further hurdles, because he probably won't show up to be sworn in
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