Your how-to guide to preferential voting in the October 31 Queensland election

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,…