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.
Maybe there's video evidence of the person who erected it. It's on a public building, so the chances are someone saw whoever put it up! But if they don't speak the language, I wonder whether ignorance would be their saviour?
it is simply a matter of convenience. Pencils can be sharpened, pens need replacing if they stop working. Voters can take a pen to the booth and use that pen to make their vote.
I have worked on elections before. When there were ’quiet times’ we used to go around and sharpen every pencil.
I have often read that use of pencil would allow a vote to be changed at some later time. That is just ridiculous.
When the papers are counted they are counted at the booth at which they were made. Tables are put together to make one large counting area. ALL counters sit around the same counting space. We were not off in our own little corner counting votes.
Each party is allowed to have volunteer scrutineers to monitor the count. When I was sorting the papers for counting, there was always one Lib/Nat scrutineer and one Labor scrutineer watching me sort. They are not allowed to touch ballot papers, but are allowed to ask to look closely at a ballot paper.
As the votes are sorted they are also sorted for 2nd preference. The AEC would nominate who they thought would be the top two candidates, so sorting was not complicated.
Let’s say that the two top candidates nominated were Lib and Labor. Votes for an independent would be sorted into a pile for Lib preferences higher that Labor OR a pile for Labor preferences higher than Lib. This would allow the scrutineers to report the preference flow for their party. Parties let media such as ABC know what their scrutineers report which is why they can predict a winner before the AEC ‘declare’ the result.
After I sorted the ballot papers I would count them into bundles of 50 and pass them off to the deputy returning officer. Once all papers were counted the DRO would fill in the return form indicating the results of our ‘count’. Scrutineers would see this count and make their own notes so they could phone the results in to their party.
What I have explained above should debunk the conspiracy theory that use of pencil is open to fraud through votes being changed at the count. The counting and reporting method has numerous checks and balances.
For those who are still not convinced that use of pencils is safe, then consider this: there are many people involved I the counting at the booths. The counters are not required to declare their political persuasion. So, when I was counting the votes the person next to me may have been from a different political persuasion to me. Does anybody seriously think I would have been able to change a ballot paper and not be seen doing so? Notwithstanding the fact that when counting we DID NOT have pencils on the table.
Initial count returns were phoned through to the Returning Officer for our electorate. So, even as the papers were transported back to a central location the count count not be manipulated as the numbers were at the AEC before the papers. A Deputy Returning Officer in charge of a booth could not manipulate the result by changing the papers before submitting them.
I was once in charge of a polling booth. It was back in 1988 and I got to travel to an isolated spot where we had about 80 people vote. There were only two of us working that booth. There was one Liberal Party scrutineer who watched us count the papers. It took us all of a few minutes to have the papers sorted, counted, wrapped and packed for returning to the AEC. I had about a forty minute drive back to the AEC office and I had all the booth votes returned by about 7pm. I have worked at larger booths where sorting and counting was not completed until about 10pm.
One punch for one pollie. (and curiously, that sounds good to me)
As for the sign....it's obviously put there by the Liberal Party.
From the link -
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."
and then -
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.
One punch for one pollie. (and curiously, that sounds good to me)
LOL - Punch a Pollie.
Well it didn't work too well for Hillary.
CNN)More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than any other losing presidential candidate in US history.
The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Not exactly first past the post :
The United States Electoral College is a body of electors established by the United States Constitution, constituted every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States.
