Labor has accused the Liberal Party of deliberately using the official colours of the Australian Electoral Commission to mislead Chinese-speaking voters in a marginal seat, despite the AEC stating the posters are within the laws.
The posters, which were written in Mandarin and have appeared at booths in the Melbourne seat of Chisholm, state the "correct" way to vote is to preference the Liberal candidate first.
A photo taken by Victorian Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari showed a poster printed in the purple and white colours of the AEC tied to a fence next to an official AEC voting banner.
The text of the poster appears to be written in the style of an official instruction to voters:
"Correct way to vote.
"On the green voting card, put preference 1 next to the Liberal Party. The other boxes can be numbered from smallest to highest."
Australian Labor Party state secretary Kosmos Samaras has confirmed to the ABC that the party lodged a formal complaint with the AEC.
AEC state manager Steve Kennedy has told the ABC that the commission has considered the complaint and found the posters did not breach election laws.
"Whilst the AEC would prefer that parties or lobby groups don't use the colour purple, the AEC doesn't own the colour purple and there is nothing restricting the use of this," he said.
The Liberal Party has declined to comment.
Both the major parties are running female Chinese-Australian candidates in the seat of Chisholm after it was vacated by Liberal-turned-independent Julia Banks.
Roughly 20 per cent of the population in the electorate, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, are of Chinese ancestry.
The battle for the seat is likely to come down to the Liberal Party's Gladys Liu and Labor's Jennifer Yang.
I'm not a political animal, but even I can see this is woefully wrong.
How does this not breach election laws?
@imastawka wrote:
Labor has accused the Liberal Party of deliberately using the official colours of the Australian Electoral Commission to mislead Chinese-speaking voters in a marginal seat, despite the AEC stating the posters are within the laws.
The posters, which were written in Mandarin and have appeared at booths in the Melbourne seat of Chisholm, state the "correct" way to vote is to preference the Liberal candidate first.
A photo taken by Victorian Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari showed a poster printed in the purple and white colours of the AEC tied to a fence next to an official AEC voting banner.
T
"On the green voting card, put preference 1 next to the Liberal Party. The other boxes can be numbered from smallest to highest."
Australian Labor Party state secretary Kosmos Samaras has confirmed to the ABC that the party lodged a formal complaint with the AEC.
AEC state manager Steve Kennedy has told the ABC that the commission has considered the complaint and found the posters did not breach election laws.
"Whilst the AEC would prefer that parties or lobby groups don't use the colour purple, the AEC doesn't own the colour purple and there is nothing restricting the use of this," he said.
The Liberal Party has declined to comment.
I'm not a political animal, but even I can see this is woefully wrong.
How does this not breach election laws?
Sounds like the only complaint was about the colour of the poster and not the text (or that's how the AEC has
seen it and commented on that only).
It's not a how to vote form as that would say number the boxes in order of your preference,etc (so it's clearly
media showing people how to vote for one party only),
Printed material may be handed out but the sign is "Permanent" so would fall under printed media.
here's a photo taken of the authorization for the sign ( not taken by me, but a concerned citizen)
it´s in really tiny writing at the bottom
@domino-710 wrote:
Cheap or not - it can be erased.
further to my previous post about the use of pencils, sorting and counting of ballot papers, and the role of scrutineers . . . . . . here is a screengrab of the ABC Ch24 taken just minutes ago.
It clearly shows the AEC staff in the purple ‘aprons’ and the scrutineers who don’t, some with clipboards (for writing notes, tally of votes and preferences etc). I count at least 4 scrutineers, possibly 5 (4 + the person in a black shirt over the right shoulder of the reporter). There may be more scrutineers present. There may be some who are monitoring the activities of the Deputy Returning Officer in charge (who wears a yellow ‘apron’).
I have circled and arrowhead the 4 that are easily seen.
For those who have never been present for a count it shows what I was posting about.
I challenge anyone to explain to me how a vote could be erased/changed while the count goes on, remembering that scrutineers write down the totals and these would have to match the official AEC totals that are shown on the AEC website for every polling booth. I am sure if the scrutineer totals differed from the AEC totals a complaint would be lodged by the aggrieved party.
