Australian Immigration Daily News

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• 

  Liana - Allan Monday, 03 March 2014

  In case anyone is interested, here is the submission I made in my own personal capacity:
  
  Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters
  Inquiry into and report on all aspects of the conduct of the 2013 Federal Election and matters related thereto.
  
  I support the initiatives of ‘Australians for honest elections’, as follows:
  
  When you vote on Election Day, you are asked your name and address but you are NOT asked to show ID. There is nothing to stop you voting except “Have you voted before today?” or for any of those people ‘living with you' at any or all of the polling places in your electorate. Yours and their names are on the rolls at every polling place, rather than as previously, at just one place. When a name is struck off at one polling place, it remains on the rolls at the other PP's, so there is nothing to stop you voting twice or multiple times.
  The availability of application forms from the Post Office has been replaced by having to apply to the AEC for registration forms online, phone or mail.
  
  The original Australian Ballot had ballot papers numbered and the butts kept, so if an election were disputed the votes were traceable. Unfortunately this was later abandoned. The result being that now once a vote goes into the box, it's counted and no-one knows if it comes from a real person, a non-existent person, a phantom voting from the grave or a single person voting once or multiple times.
  
  To draw attention to the absurdity, in a recent South Australian election, a family-run operation calling itself ''The Election Team” claimed to have voted 159 times. There was no way of proving or disproving them, no way of tracing them and no way of knowing if their votes altered the outcome.
  
  The remedy for this is absurdly simple. One must show a provable ID before one can vote. Even simple transactions these days, require ID - a Medicare card, driver's licence, gas bill, something to prove you are who you claim to be. It should be expected that the foundation of this great nation, the right to vote, should require the same level of identification.
  
  Recommended actions to overcome deficiencies, as taken from Australians for Honest elections site:
  
  • Introduce provable ID at general voting.
  • Install electronic connection from the Polling Places to the central Data Bank (as installed in South Africa from 1989) enabling voter’s name to be marked on all rolls as having voted immediately the voter has registered and been given voting papers.
  • Impose penalties on AEC polling Place workers who incorrectly mark off names of voters, to reduce the number of “clerical errors” claimed after reports of multiple voting are published.
  • Require Scrutineers at Polling Places to count informal votes and blank unused voting papers for comparison with voting papers issued.
  • Redirect the opportunistic innovators of new political parties to the 4 major parties by tightening the requirements for registration.
  • Reduce the opportunities for multiple voting by
  • Restoring subdivisional voting with postcards sent to eligible voters three weeks prior to Declaration of the Writs notifying the voter at which Polling Place closest to the voter’s residence that voter’s name is on the roll (as in UK and original H S Chapman design for secret ballot voting).
  • Restoring the rules for Pre-Poll voting which limit such voting to voters signing declarations in a register that they are unable to be in their electorate on polling day.
  • Reviewing the eligibility and procedure for Absentee and postal voting.
  • Removing the right of the Electoral Commissioner to circumnavigate the law defined by Act of Parliament by exercising the Commissioner's freedom to introduce regulations.
  • Publish statistics of Declaration votes within 40 days of the election. (instead of waiting until after the meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters).
  • Consider the following recommendations:
  As in The (NSW) Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act 66FA Entitlements resulting from party registration not available until first anniversary of registration
  i. A party that becomes registered under this Part is not a registered party until the first anniversary of its registration for the following purposes:- gathering a group of likeminded citizens to form a political party
  ii. A party that becomes registered under this Part is not, until the first anniversary of its registration:
  1. a registered party for the purposes of the Electoral Funding Act 1981, or
  2. a party for the purposes of sections 60 and 61 of that Act.
  iii. This section extends to a party whose registration was previously cancelled under this Part.
  iv. If the registration of a party has been wrongfully delayed by any act or omission of the Electoral Commissioner, the Supreme Court or the Electoral Commissioner may, by order, backdate the registration of the party to the date on which the party should have been registered. Such an order cannot be made so as to backdate the registration of a party to a date during or before a previous period referred to in section 66F.
  v. The Register of Parties cannot be amended to backdate the registration of a party, except as authorised by an order under subsection (4).
  The (NSW) Constitution Act 1902 states in the Sixth Schedule:-
  At a poll for a periodic Council election, a voter shall be required to record his vote for 15 candidates and no more but shall be permitted to record his vote for as many more candidates as he pleases, so as to indicate in such manner as may be provided by law the candidates for whom he votes and the order of his preferences for them.
  b. Amend the "Electoral Act". To facilitate the introduction of proposed optional preferential voting above the line rather than Parties deciding preference flows by substituting a new Subsection 239(2):
  i. A vote may be marked on a ballot‑paper by:
  1. Writing the number 1 in group voting square (if any) printed on the ballot‑paper under subsection 168(4); and
  2. Writing in the remaining group voting squares printed on the ballot‑paper under subsection 168(4):
  a. in the case of a Senate election—the numbers 2 to 4 at least if there are four or more group voting squares, or if there are less than four group voting squares, numbers in a sequence of consecutive numbers commencing with the number 2 to fill however many voting squares there are; or
  b. in the case of an election following a dissolution of the Senate—the numbers 2 to 7 at least if there are seven or more group voting squares, or if there are less than seven group voting squares, numbers in a sequence of consecutive numbers commencing with the number 2 to fill however many voting squares there are; and
  3. If the voter wishes, by writing any additional consecutive numbers beginning with the number 5 or the number 8, as the case may be, in any remaining group voting squares printed on the ballot‑paper under subsection 168(4).
  It has been brought to our attention that voter fraud and election manipulation is occurring.
  
  I refer the Committee to the following.
  
  Books
  'The Frauding of Votes?' by Dr Amy McGrath (foreword by Bob Bottom) , available here (ISBN: 9780959187991)
  • 'The Frauding of Elections' by Dr Amy McGrath, available for free, here (ISBN:
  • 'Corrupt Elections' edited by the HS Chapman Society, available from here (ISBN: 0958710406)
  • 'The Forging of votes' by Dr Amy McGrath, available from here (ISBN: 0959187936)
  • 'The Stolen Election Australia, 1987 According to Frank Hardy' by Dr Amy McGrath
  
  Online sites
  • HS Chapman Society - a similar society with concerns of Australian electoral fraud.
  • Wikipedia article on electoral fraud
  
  Further, I recommend that anyone joining a political party as a member should need to show 100 points of ID including utilities and other evidence of current residential address. This will avoid people joining political parties and using other people’s addresses for the purpose of joining a branch in a different Federal electorate and thus, limit branch stacking and false enrolments, and avoid false declarations on on the AEC website (AEC website is used to verify addresses for the purpose of party membership).
  
  I believe that someone should have to prove that they live at the address in order to register that specific address with the AEC. I believe the AEC should request ongoing verification of residential address on the electoral roll by way of random audit.
  

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  Justin Jefferson Thursday, 06 March 2014

  Such fraud by voters is the least of it. By far the bigger problem is vote fraud by politicians.
  
  This is because by law "misleading and deceptive conduct or conduct likely to mislead or deceive" is illegal, but only "in trade or commerce", not in politics or government.
  
  As a result there is nothing stopping politicians or bureaucrat policy-makers from blatantly lying. They do it all the time, for example describing something as an "investment" when it's the opposite. Such fraud is legal, routine, notorious. You have no legal remedy whatsoever, whereas a private person making such misrepresentations, involving billions of dollars, would go to prison for a very long time.
  
  Let's not forget that politicians do this for a living and personally profit from this, by their above-market salaries and conditions, and often by ongoing deals and benefits even after they leave politics.
  
  A more urgently-needed reform than that above is to amend the relevant laws to read "in trade, commerce, politics or government", so that any elector has a right to sue a politician personally for all their assets, for the kind of lying that is now routine and done with impunity.
  
  That would solve a problem of voter fraud that makes the fiddling with electoral rolls look small beer indeed.

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  Liana - Allan Thursday, 06 March 2014

  Justin
  Why not send that in to the enquiry? Every opinion and submission is taken into consideration. Brilliant!
  Liana

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