Tony Abbott wants voting ways to change Even if you were an expert you would have struggled to have a sense of who you ultimately voted for in the Senate, a university professor says. VOTING procedures could be set for a major shake-up, with the Abbott government flagging changes to the Senate process over widespread confusion at the weekend. Constitutional law experts said on Monday many punters had no idea of who they had actually voted for, with a maze of preference deals and sprawling ballot paper contributing. "In this election it was almost impossible for an ordinary voter to cast a vote with knowledge of where their preference might ultimately end up," said Professor George Williams from Melbourne University. NEW FACES: Six people you wouldn't believe could be elected Even if you were an expert you would have struggled to have a sense of who you ultimately voted for in the Senate and that's a major problem. People ended up voting for someone they didn't support and in many cases voting for someone who they didn't even know existed. Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott said the oversized NSW Upper House ballot paper featuring 110 candidates and a virtually-unknown party with a similar name scoring votes intended for the Liberals showed the system needed to be addressed. However, the Australian Electoral Commission insisted it stood by its decision to allow the Liberal Democrats name on the basis it was different enough to the Liberal Party of Australia name. The Liberal Democrats scored 284,000 votes in NSW after also featuring prominently on the ballot paper, despite its low profile. UNITED: Palmer a new kingmaker in Aussie politics The far more high profile Greens attracted 248,000 votes and Palmer's United Party only 113,000 votes. Mr Abbott insisted the appropriate place to examine the issue was parliament's joint standing committee on electoral matters when it does its normal post-election report. A member of the committee in the last two parliaments, South Australian Senator Simon Birmingham, called for consideration of option preferential voting system in the Senate, allowing voters to number, for example, their top six candidates given that was all they could elect anyway instead of numbering all the names. Senator Birmingham said confusion over party names was definitely an issue and that the "absurd" cross-preferencing by minor parties with different ideological backgrounds had to be eliminated. "It is obviously a distortion of democracy," he said. It is very clear that confusion over party names played a role in this election. Just as a lot of effort goes into minimising the informal vote there similarly needs to be effort to minimise the confused vote. CHALLENGE: Minor parties could unhinge Coalition plans Labor Senator Doug Cameron said he was not advocating change but noted issues with people wanting to vote for him directly instead of Labor above the line. "People were coming to me saying they wanted to vote for me below the line but it was impossible because it was so complex and you make one mistake and the vote is wasted," he said. In an interview on Sydney's 2UE radio station, Mr Abbott said: "Obviously there were a lot of people confronted with that very, very long Senate ballot paper, almost a metre long, and would have looked along the top row and seen Liberal and thought they were voting for the Liberal National Party Coalition but only worked out later that in fact they were voting for the Liberal Democrats," he said. I think this is an issue and I think it will have to be addressed, but it should be addressed once we've had that Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report. But the AEC defended approving the Liberal Democrats name in June, pointing to its published decision scuttling a Liberal Party appeal. In the decision, the AEC referenced earlier tribunal decisions including one that found it was wrong to kybosh an application by a party called Liberals For Forests because it was too similar. "The delegate of the AEC considers that the word 'Democrats' is sufficient to aurally and visually distinguish between 'Liberal' and 'Liberal Democrats' such that the proposed abbreviation is not required to be refused," the AEC said. It takes just 500 members, a written constitution, $500 and about three months to set up a political party in Australia. The Australian Electoral Commission administers the registration of aspiring political parties. After notifying the AEC of intent to form a party, there is a wait of about three months for any objection to be heard and to check the veracity of the party membership. Officials call a random sample of the listed members to confirm their identity and that they are not members of any other party. Applications to register a party can be rejected if the new entity's name is deemed inappropriate, offensive or too similar to another party. The AEC can deregister a party if it doesn't front a candidate in four years or its membership slips below 500.