Yes Terry, there are many dificiencies in any system of secret voting in a Democracy.We must have compulsory voting and yet the debate on that is far more critical to the outcome than the problem you discuss.Also there is the debate on preferences, mandatory or optional.I know, and as a Queenslander, so do you, that the changes to electoral boundaries make a big difference,Branch stacking has gone on for as long as personal ambition rules a candidate's action more than their ideals.Practical considerations rule out asking for identification at the polling booth, unless you want the polling day to become a "polling week." "Democracy is the worst form of Government-except for all the rest!" "The people on the other side of the house, are not the "enemy"-they're the "opposition,"- the enemy is sitting right behind you!" These are quotes attributed to Sir Winston Churchill. Still, I think more attention could be paid to the ressurection of eligible voters.It is a grave matter.

The utterly fraudulent voting process in the US should make us very thankful we have the system we have. Thank god for the AEC! It is therefore even more incumbent on us to ensure the continuing validity of our system, and the author of this article is right to arouse our indignation. We have something precious and we should protect it jealously. However, I find it hard to believe that what rorting occurs here is limited to the ALP, as Grygar implies.

Yes, the ALP may be tarred in this article, and probably rightly so, however, the issue of electoral fraud is also endorsed by the AEC when it comes to candidates, so what hope is there?

Given that most Party MP's don't realistically represent their electorate, but, the wider party interest, and that most voters vote for a party, rather than a person, our whole system has been corrupted by party machines that exempt themselves from privacy laws and funding regulations etc, and represent those who fund them - unions, developers, industrialists etc.

It should be compulsory for all candidates to live in their electorate for at least 12 months prior to candidature and they should lose there place in parliament if they move out of the electorate.

Any seat that does not have a margin of more than 2% should be subject to a roll audit.

In this article http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/01/04/1198950073955.html

it states:

nine of Labor's 83 seats were won by margins of less than 1.5%;
the Coalition's won 13 of its 65 seats by less than 2%, five of them by less than 0.22%.

Surely the AEC could manage this and forget about even looking at any safe seats with large margins?

Things have got a lot better since I came to Australia in 1970. Then, a massive gerrymander denied the people their choice of federal government in in 1961 and 1969. Postal votes filled out in old people's homes, with no scrutineering, were mysteriously overwhelmingly for the Liberal Party. People were taken to vote who were incapable of understanding who they were voting for (as evidenced by the way they had to be told what to do).

Now, there is less room for gerrymanders. When scrutineering was introduced into old peoples' homes, the number of those deemed capable of voting plummeted. The third problem, however, persists.

At the recent federal election, a deliberate diffficulty was created for new voters; the time in which they could enroll between the announmcement of the election and the closing of the rolls was shortened . (Yes, most of them might have enrolled earlier. But the intention of the then government was perfectly clear, and it was effective.) The proposal to require indentification would similarly disadvantage young voters. No, you can't assume, without research, that everyone would have a letter from a business organisation or a bank which they could bring to the polling place. New voters are unlikely, until they enroll, even to discover that they need one. They are not likely to have saved one for the purpose. The young get very few of such things anyway.

There was a proposal a few years ago that people would have to produce a Medicare card. Since at the time only one Medicare card was provided for entire families, the system would have prevented a great many people from voting--especially where one or more members of the familiy worked on Saturdays.

By comparison with these things, the problems that are mentioned in the article are minor.

Still the Electoral Office is working on them. Voters are visited every so often, with priority being given to new voters, and those not found to be living where the rolls say they are are removed from the rolls. Spurious addresses are noted, so that they cannot be used again.

Johntas is right. What we have here in Australia is not too bad at all. For all the improvements that could and probably should be made to our voting system, Australia has an extraordinarily high participation rate of eligible voters compared to other comparable Western democracies.

That Terry Gygar only points the finger at the ALP is understandable. What the little ID blurb at the end of his article fails to mention is his pre law career as Queensland Parliamentarian as Liberal Member for Stafford from 1974 to 1989.

A very good, albeit depressing, article. The author hinted at, and I think he may be correct, that the AEC may well be more complicit by turning a blind eye, than anyone realises.
I am always surprised how few people here are ever convicted of any kind of actual election voting fraud. A few years ago it was reported that an Australian was convicted for unlawfully voting in an American election (his defence was that as a permanent resident he thought he was allowed to vote). This would mean that approximately the same number of Australians are convicted of voting fraud in Australia as in America!

A good web site on the history of electoral fraud in Australia is that of the HS Chapman Society.
http://www.hschapman.org/

Yvonne, How can it be a virtue that a lot of Australians vote if the reason they vote is due to government compulsion?

Tinman, I very much disagree that we must have compulsory voting. Why make a bad result (where dead people are voting) even worse by adding the influence of those whose interest and knowledge of the political system is also as dead as those six feet under?
http://compulsoryvoting.org

(OK, the knowledge of the dead voters is probably up to scratch, but their corruption of the process casts a deathly pall over the democratic ideal)

Edward, a few years ago I did a big paper at Uni on compulsory voting. I set out to prove my point that compulsory voting is undemocratic and has no place in a democracy. Compulsion of any kind tends to rankle with me! I compared three countries with very similar types of government, standard of living and education of the population but with differences in voting habits.

I compared the USA with never a compulsion, Australia with compulsion and the Netherlands with compulsory voting until 1975, since then no longer.

The research for this paper was an eye opener for me and the first time that I was forced to come to a different conclusion than the one I had set out to prove.

The Netherlands now has a severe drop in voter participation. This has created changes in the political landscape. Not only in the make up of political parties and the level of extremism, but also in the sort of person actually going into politics. Voter and political participation has been reduced to largely addressing a particular demographic group.

To cut a long paper with all the references short, the conclusion is that compelling all citizens to vote actually results in governance relevant and appealing to the majority of all its citizens. Compulsory voting is a great actual equalizer of all the citizens of a nation that a finely worded Constitution or indeed a Bill of Rights couldn't. Provided of course that we continue to have choice. Which is of course another debate again.

The AEC is an integral part of this set-up. That is why an article like Terry Gygar's is important. Any whiff of impropriety or concerns with integrity and independence in general should be pursued and rectified.

Yvonne,
A big build up to telling us what is wrong with voluntary voting and then where were the punch lines?
“V.V. addresses only one demographic.” Which one? If it was the demographic of concerned citizens then why is that a wrong?
“compelling all citizens to vote actually results in governance relevant and appealing to the majority of all its citizens. Compulsory voting is a great actual equalizer of all the citizens” Are you sure you couldn’t have made it even more vague? We’re talking about voluntary voting, not apartheid.

yvonne,

I am surprised that with all your research on compulsory voting you did not appreciate that with secret ballot, compulsory voting really means compulsory attendance at the polling booth. As electoral officials are specifically prohibited from revealing the vote of any elector, whether you choose to cast a formal ballot or not is up to you.

The fact that compulsory voting has remained in force since the 1920's, while governments have changed many times, shows who really benefits. The government of the day benefits. This is because no matter how hard they try, governments cannot avoid damaging the interests of some of their supporters. Many of these supporters are emotionally linked to a political party, and could not bring themselves to vote for the opposition, but, if voting were voluntary, they could choose not to vote at all.

What I think should happen is that compulsory voting should be replaced by compulsory attendance at the booth, which is an important factor in minimising fraudulent voting. When attending, an official should ask the vote whether they wish to vote, and proceed accordingly.

I am also amused by the procedure adopted when pursuing non-voters, who are asked to give the "true reason" why they did not vote. I understand that if the reason given is that voting is against your religion, no further action will be taken.

Plerdus, would there be any difference in how a government remains in power whether or not its citizen are compelled to vote, or attend a polling booth? A political party in government would generally have the upper hand simply because voters have an actual track record and the government of the day gets to call the election. Voters are asked to take a punt and believe what the opposition offers as an alternative. Of course there are die-hard party followers, usually because of deeply held philosophical convictions, but there are enough people who 'swing'.

Edward, I'm not all together sure what your point is. Do you think that it is OK for the health of a democracy, which is supposedly to be 'government for the people by the people' when only 45% of the eligible-to-vote population votes and the government is formed from the party elected by just over half of that small number of voters?

In Australia you have to make your way to a polling booth whether or not you are a highly educated professional, a small business owner, an unemployed person, a fanatical tree-hugging greenie (four simplified demographic groups for you) or anything in between.

Seeing that political parties are dependent on donations to get a look-in to govern who do you think are most likely to vote? Those with direct financial input and therefore input in political direction and those deeply passionate about a cause.

I do think it rather sweet though that you think that any nation would have enough 'concerned citizens' who will vote for the 'best government' without looking after number one first and foremost if not only.

Yvonne,
The crux of your argument seems to be that democracy is the ultimate good and that democracy is defined, thanks to that hirsute chap from the log cabin, as government, inter alia…“by the people”.
I agree with the first and disagree with the second.
I think democracy is defined as that system of government that the people want. (as feasible as that may be to attain)
I think a state is still democratic even if some choose not to vote because they believe the right government will get in anyway due to contemporary polling. I also think that what the people want is the same as what the people express no objection to. Thus I believe a country is still fully democratic if people stay away from the polls because either party winning is still viewed with the same level of acceptance.
There is a principle in common law called ‘Volenti non fit injuria’, which interprets as ‘there can be no injury to the willing’. A person cannot claim harm from any predicament that arises if he acquiesced to the situation in the first place. If a person decides not to vote then neither he, nor you acting for him, can claim the government of the day is not acting in his interests.

Non-democratic means that people are specifically denied an input. It is ridiculous to claim an election was not democratic because some boofheads would rather spend their half hour consuming another beer in the pub than standing in line at a polling station.

http://compulsoryvoting.org/donkey.html

P.S. Yes I am rather sweet, in a sour kind of way.

Edward,

Glad you are sweet, though a bit sour. Excellent combination of flavours in cooking nevertheless.

To throw in the merits or otherwise of democracy, or even the type of democracy, is another issue altogether. Australia is one, though there are some who would disagree with that! And hey, are you making fun of my loose translation of Greek? It's even older than Latin, so there.

'There is a principle in common law called ‘Volenti non fit injuria’, which interprets as ‘there can be no injury to the willing’.' Love your command of Latin and it creates a suspicion of at least a flirtation with law. I loved all that Latin, though the pronunciation was invariably excruciating. Like nails on a blackboard. Had much success with that one in cases involving say, Sadomasochism? I thought not.

Accusing fellow citizens of being boofheads just because they have the good sense drinking a beer in a pub rather than voting in bland political polls for another boring government is very judgmental. Not very sweet of you at all.

But just like we have laws to wear helmets (if only you knew how great it feels to have the wind howling through one's hear while riding a bike you'd know how undemocratic that law is) and seatbelts and pay taxes, found to be a rather good thing in a Utilitarian way, so it is to enforce a duty that is expected of a citizen, like voting.

What am I saying? An arguably Utilitarian law to combat majority voter apathy, the wonderful result of a stable, non-passion arousing political climate, is a good thing.

Vive our humdrum Australia with compulsory voting and a mainly independent AEC! Do we even need to do something about those dead voters? I know exactly what auntie Alice would have voted, even if she might be somewhat disappointed in non-union Kevin.

Hooray for Terry Gygar.

Why should anyone be surprised that the AEC ignores electoral fraud? The Australian Electoral Commission is, after all, a Labor creation.

Australians forget that Gough Whitlam’s government replaced the Commonwealth Electoral Branch with the ‘Australian Electoral Office’. Then, Bob Hawke’s government quickly replaced the Australian Electoral Office with a conveniently unaccountable body called the ‘Australian Electoral Commission’.

Two Labor governments -- two occasions in Australian history when electoral administration was quietly reorganised. With each reorganization, Labor leaders made union-style election fraud and criminal misconduct easier to perpetrate, harder to detect and virtually impossible to prove when discovered. Graham Richardson even boasts of this on page 144 of his book, 'Whatever it Takes.'

The pathetically timid Liberal Party blew its chance to restore integrity to our elections. They failed to act despite eyewitness reports and reams of evidence to State and Federal inquiries.

In November 2007, Fran Bailey almost became the latest victim of fraud aimed at toppling non-Labor candidates. Despite more than 2200 absentee ballots from one booth alone in the neighbouring electorate of Scullin, Bailey held onto McEwen by just twelve votes. Other candidates weren’t so lucky.

Voting fraud is a crime. Organised voting fraud is organised crime. The AEC is not an asset to our democracy but a liability. It denies truth and looks away as the will of the people is trumped by the will of corrupt people.

When will Australians accept that the ALP created the AEC for ALP interests, not the national interest? How much cheating is necessary for Australians to accept that Australians lose when corrupt people embrace power through fraud?

With Cronulla in mind, election-related violence in Kenya is a prescient warning about Australia’s future after we have subdivided into competing communities with little at stake in each other’s success thanks to the poisoned chalice of ‘multiculturalism’.

While the AEC enables election fraud and Labor officials encourage fraud to win elections, they condemn our children to the risk of violence and chaos when people frustrated by electoral corruption finally lose faith in the process and turn on each other.