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The Forum > Article Comments > Fraud and the election: High Court challenge > Comments

Fraud and the election: High Court challenge : Comments

By David Flint, published 9/8/2010

Why did GetUp! wait until now to challenge the Howard legislation which closes electoral rolls one day after an election is called?

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Continued

I quoted from the indymedia website because of its high ranking in a Google search I did while looking for a report on the outcome of the FEDERAL court challenge that had been reportedly lodged by GetUp! at the same time as their High Court challenge. My search terms were 'Federal court challenge+Getup'. This is what I got: http://twitpic.com/2d93ik
The indymedia listing* is the one at the bottom, ending with the words 'just turn up'.

A news item in The Australian ( http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/getup-wins-high-court-challenge-to-electoral-roll-cut-off/story-fn59niix-1225902071456 ) says:

"The commission said this afternoon that those
newly eligible under the ruling would have to
cast declaration ballots as the voter lists for
polling stations had already been printed."

It also says:

"In addition to those who enrolled in the seven
days after the rolls closed on July 19, the ruling
also includes people who are overseas or of no
fixed address."

If these two statements constitute correct reporting, its beginning to look like the message is, as published in the indymedia listing, whether or not you enrolled after the deadline, "just turn up" on polling day and make a declaration vote. The reported intention of the AEC to require the newly eligible under the ruling to cast declaration votes may constitute a subversion of the High Court's decision, which it appears applies to only those who ACTUALLY ENROLLED in the seven days after the rolls closed on 19 July 2010.

Such actual enrolments as were made during the subject period should already be a matter of record. They should already show up here: http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/elector_count/index.htm . Why should the AEC not now simply publish a magenta supplementary list of the additions for each Division, as was standard practice up to 1983?



Is the Australian public being snowed?




* But don't try to access it from the Google page. You will get this: http://twitpic.com/2d95w3 . Use my link given above.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Tuesday, 10 August 2010 11:42:32 AM
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GrahamY,
Yes it is a democracy and people can and will criticise the High Court. But as you have pointed out we are yet awaiting the rational for the decision making the article speculative and there fore poor journalism and no more than an opinion piece. I argue often that journalism has lost its integrity with this sort of bias opinion that has no proper objectivity. The influence that these articles have in the community requires them to be of a high standard. What we all want to say on this site is personal opinion and we all go for it on that basis, i have even enjoyed being tuned in on many subjects about which i have found myself ill informed.
Posted by nairbe, Tuesday, 10 August 2010 1:31:31 PM
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George Williams, in the OLO Article 'Electoral roll makes a mockery of the election', ( http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10712 ), published on Tuesday 20 July, says in his concluding paragraphs:

"GetUp! devised an ingenious way around
the limitations of pen and paper enrolment.
It set up a website by which people could
fill in the Australian Electoral Commission's
enrolment form. It then did the legwork of
making sure the information got to the
commission in the correct manner.

GetUp! has solid grounds for believing it
was on the right side of the law. However,
its idea has never been tested in the courts,
and the organisation rightly took down the
website after the commission understandably
took a conservative view in deciding not to
register the forms.

This will not be the end of the issue. The
attempt by GetUp! at online enrolment will
probably need to be resolved in the courts
over the coming days."

Well, to a certain extent, it has now been resolved.

The Electoral Commission has made it clear that the High Court ruling applies to only enrolments actually lodged with the AEC within the then disputed seven day period. See: http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Media_releases/e2010/06-08.htm

I have several questions.

Are these enrolments co-ordinated by GetUp! the subject of the FEDERAL court challenge, upon which there has been little, if any, information available to the public? How many enrolments are there in this category? What decision has the Federal court made?

Apart from any enrolments co-ordinated by GetUp!, how many enrolment applications did the AEC receive during the period the subject of the ruling?

Could it be that the AEC is at this point saying persons now eligible to vote by virtue of the ruling will have to make a declaration vote claim is in order not to reveal, before the elections, precisely in which Divisions any such enrolments co-ordinated by GetUp! have been effected?

What prevents the AEC printing a supplementary list of such electors for each Division straight away?

A delayed Federal court decision?
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Tuesday, 10 August 2010 4:36:05 PM
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Yet more warning bells are ringing in this disgracefully ill-reported matter.

This time the Australian public have Professor Graeme Orr to thank for the heads-up. In an article posted on 6 August on http://inside.org.au/court-by-surprise-the-high-court-upholds-voting-rights/ , Graeme Orr says:

"The immediate effect is that approximately
100,000 enrolments will be processed that
otherwise would have lain in abeyance. SOME
OF THESE ARE NOT NEW ENROLMENTS: JUST A MATTER
OF GETTING PEOPLE INTO THEIR CORRECT ELECTORATES*.
The figure could have been much higher: we will
never know how many people were deterred from trying
to enrol because they thought they were too late."

I am assuming from the publication of his article on the very day of the High Court decision in respect of the roll closure date that Graeme Orr, in writing about the entirely separate online enrolment case before the Federal court ( See this GetUp! web page: http://twitpic.com/2div03 ) had inside information as to the content of the challenge.

Despite the Parliament having not legislated for online enrolment, OR TRANSFER OF ENROLMENT, we have a third party in the form of GetUp! (not the enrolment applicant or elector) presuming to dispose of as to where enrolments will be placed at the last minute when an election has been called! 'Targetting the marginals', no doubt.




100,000 enrolments, strategically placed, could alter what might, in their absence, have been an entirely different electoral result.




Its almost as good as an outright confession on the part of GetUp! to attempting to rig an election! Here we have an organisation, other that the AEC, posing as the champion of un-enrolled youth attempting to move names that are already enrolled around within the rolls!

Let's hope the Governor-General calls upon the AEC to publish the number of enrolment claims that are the subject of the GetUp! Federal court challenge, and within that number, the number that are transfers of existing enrolments. And while they are at it, the number of non GetUp! 'late' enrolments.

Subverting the High Court decision?






* Emphasis mine.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Wednesday, 11 August 2010 9:52:35 AM
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There is still no indication of the AEC maintaining electoral transparency with respect to the noised-about 100,000 or so GetUp! co-ordinated online enrolments and transfers: as of 8:30 AM there had been no updating of the 'Elector Count by Division, Age Group and Gender' page on the AEC website. See: http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/elector_count/1003.htm

I can understand that the AEC may be reluctant to publish anything with respect to those enrolments that are the subject (presumably) of contention in the Federal Court until the court rules on the matter.

What about those enrolments that were lodged directly with the AEC between 8:00 PM Monday 19 July and close of business on Monday 26 July? What prevents the immediate publication of these enrolments that were only the subject of the High Court ruling as to roll closure time, enrolments not complicated by the contention as to the legality of online lodgement?




Could it be that there are embarrassingly few of such enrolments?




What will happen if the Federal Court ruling is delayed beyond polling day? Presumably that will mean DROs will have to delay the scrutiny of the declaration vote until the court has ruled. The opportunity will have been given for an un-audited, un-official organisation to hold up a Federal election! The opportunity will also have been given to defeat the provisions of the CEA as to the vote being taken by polling day.

What if the number and distribution of the GetUp! enrolments is such that they could alter the outcome of the whole election and the formation of the country's government? Will Australia face uncertainty as to the result of the elections while the matter is disputed in multiple Court of Disputed Returns hearings?

Whatever opinion may be as to it, the Parliament has not so far provided that online enrolment shall be an available option. Is the Federal Court setting itself up above the Parliament in not immediately dismissing this matter of online enrolment as being beyond its jurisdiction?
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Thursday, 12 August 2010 8:58:20 AM
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Well, we finally have a decision in respect to the GetUp! co-ordinated attempt at last minute placement of enrolments by means of online lodgement onto the electoral rolls.

A concise summary of Friday's Federal Court decision re online enrolment can be found here: https://twitter.com/GrahamY/status/21044961033

"Another advance for slacktivism.
Nintendo democracy."

Indeed.




Some examples of MSM 'journalism' reporting the Federal Court decision:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/getup-wins-landmark-case-to-allow-voters-to-enrol-online/story-e6frfku0-1225904996510

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/federal-court-ruling-in-getup-case-opens-way-for-online-enrolments-in-elections/story-fn59niix-1225904996564

To read them one would have thought GetUp! had won its case. It would seem that in fact those touted 100,000 GetUp! online enrolments will NOT be going onto the electoral rolls for this Federal election. It would be nice to have official confirmation of that, though, from the AEC. It would be even nicer, with respect to the maintenance of electoral transparency, if the AEC was to publish a supplementary list of all these attempted online enrolments so that the public could see into which Divisions it was intended that they be placed, especially given that if we are to believe the court's ruling, those names will shortly be going onto the rolls anyway.




A more informative online report of the Federal Court decision by Professor Graeme Orr is available here: http://inside.org.au/voting-rights-round-two-to-getup/

Interestingly, Professor Orr says, in the tenth paragraph of his report:

" Since the Ozenrol site was not live for long,
there cannot be many people who will immediately
benefit from the ruling, unlike Rowe’s case,
which has enfranchised tens of thousands for the
upcoming election."

That's not the understanding I had gained from the admittedly dismal MSM reports of the GetUp! case(s).

Time for the AEC to let the public know the true position. And, by number, in which offices the 'Rowe's case' enrolments were lodged.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Saturday, 14 August 2010 11:28:24 AM
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