under preferential voting off course they can win but it would mean that the candidate had support from a majority of voters expressed through preferences compared to the candidates that missed out.
If we had first past the post voting like some countries have then where there are many candidates someone can win with even less than 25% of the vote in spite of the rest of the voters not wanting that person and under first past the post cant express their second preference.
Thankfully Australia has opted for the far better, more representative system of preferential voting.
