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@domino-710 wrote:

And what is it with voting - using a pencil on a string. lol

 

All legal documents require - ink.

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@domino-710 wrote:

 

Cheap or not - it can be erased.

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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.