Recommendations for Improving Elections

We have identified 9 recommendations for improving the transparency of the Australian electoral process:

  1. Require valid identification before admitting a person onto the Electoral Roll
    This means amending section 98AA (2)(c) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 ('CEAct') and its associated Regulation which, in their current forms, enable false enrolments.
  2. Restore door-to-door habitation reviews
    This will help to detect and remove false and/or incorrect enrolments from the Electoral Roll. Habitations reviews were conducted for many years as proscribed in subsections 92 (4) and (5) of the CEAct but were curiously stopped in 1995. If the next election could be held as late as possible (December 2016) then the results of the next Census, 9 August 2016, could be used to correct the Electoral Rolls.
  3. Require voters to present identification before being allowed to vote
    The 2014 amendments to sections 3, 107 and 112 of the Queensland Electoral Act are proven effective at requiring proof of identity for ordinary and pre-poll voting. These identity provisions must include postal voting, which has facilitated extensive fraud.
  4. Introduce “Electronic Certified Lists” and link polling places electronically to a central master Electoral Roll
    The AEC admitted that 18,770 electors has been marked on the Roll as having received ballot papers two or more times during the Australian Federal election of 7 September 2013. No one has been prosecuted. “Electronic Certified Lists” in combination with polling places linked electronically to a central Master Electoral Roll would result in each elector’s name being marked off the relevant electoral roll at all polling places where voting papers can be issued to that elector so preventing ballot papers being issued more than once in the name of that elector. This is official Liberal Party policy, a motion to this effect having been passed at their National Council about four years ago.
  5. Enforce electoral laws to limit voting to polling day and constrain pre-poll and postal voting
    Voting over a two-week period prior to election day makes vote fraud too easy to commit. Current law contains legal criteria for eligibility for pre-poll and postal voting but the law has not been enforced effectively by the AEC, resulting in huge increases in recent years of numbers of pre-poll and postal votes. These criteria should be tightened with the objective of requiring as much voting on the actual election day as is possible.
  6. Install security cameras at polling places
    Such a simple measure does not require legislation. Cameras have proven themselves indispensable in thwarting and solving crime. They can discourage multiple-voting by aiding the identification of electors re-entering polling places during elections. Cameras would provide valuable evidence for subsequent investigations into multiple-voting and voter impersonation.
  7. Restore Sub-divisional voting
    The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 was designed and based on ‘SubDivision Voting’ which applied until 1984. Abolition of sub-divisional voting contributed to the defeat of Alasdair Webster by 164 votes in 1993 in Macquarie. In that election, numerous individuals impersonated Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other religious groups at polling places. Jehovah’s Witnesses do not vote. They are legally exempted from voting due to conscientious objection. In previous elections, Jehovah's Witnesses received customary letters from the Electoral Commission after an election alleging that the person named in each letter had failed to vote. Tellingly, Jehovah’s Witnesses did not receive such letters following the 1993 election. As far as the electoral authorities were concerned, someone had voted in the names of those Jehovah's Witnesses. In geographically broad electorates, individuals who impersonate those exempted from voting on religious grounds can vote by stealth at the other end of an electorate with little risk of being recognised as imposters. Sub-divisional voting would force imposters to vote close to where the person lives, thus greatly increasing the risk of being noticed.
  8. Pens to replace pencils
    Issue ink pens in place of pencils at polling booths to make altering of ballot papers harder.
  9. Reinstate the AEC as public service department
    Abolish the AEC as an independent statutory authority and bring it under Ministerial control as a public service department, as it used to be from 1901 until 1984.

JOIN THE FIGHT

Add your name and let’s keep Australian elections free and fair.

  • signed One Person, One Vote at Every Election 2022-10-19 11:11:13 +1100
    My vote is for one person only not for preferance
  • commented on A fair voting system 2022-06-23 20:29:52 +1000
    John thanks for taking the time to read PLERS.

    With regards to computer entry, AEC always enters every vote on their computer system and that is what determines the result. Doing an election night manual count would give enough information from 1st and 2nd preferences to predict a PLERS result.

    The chapter I am currently writing uses PLERS Simplified for political elections, which simplifies the count process. For Reps elections 1st pref gets a 1.0, 2nd 0.9, 3rd 0.8, etc till the 11th and all subsequent getting zero (0.0). It’s a simple process, you just add up the vote value and rank the candidates.

    Senate is a little more complex but follows similar lines.

    Regards Erik
  • commented on A fair voting system 2022-06-23 15:53:21 +1000
    John, I have clearly documented how Preferential Voting (PV) can overcome the shortcomings of First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting – in BOTH single member electorates and in Proportional Representation systems such as you advocate. You correctly say that PR would make life easier for the voters, the AEC, and government, but then you say “as far as fairness is concerned – [PR] is unbeatable”. The fact is PR does not guarantee a fair count and I have proved this with examples, and proved that Preferential Voting beats PR in fairness.

    I have clearly demonstrated clear numerical examples how the PR system you advocate can get it WRONG, but that those problems can be reduced by adding Preferential Voting and, better still, even totally eliminated by counting the votes via DPAP. DCAP/DPAP totally eliminates the problems of electing Parties or Candidates contrary to voters’ collective preferences. Without PV PR totally ignore everything except first preferences and that risks unfair results.

    DPAP is the ONLY guaranteed fair vote counting method that allow you, John, to vote only for the party you want, while allowing others to use full or partial or split preferential voting as they see fit, and yet every vote still carries exactly the same value. The Borda Count comes close, but can’t handle partial preferential voting. PLERS comes closer, but it does NOT handle partial preferential voting fairly because it does not count partial preferential votes linearly – unless Erik has changed his system to overcome that fault since I pointed it out some months ago in this forum.

    DCAP facilitates high security against electoral fraud. It suits transparent block-chain security with a complete audit trail from paper ballot paper and/or electronic screen voting all the way from polling booth to final declaration. Being totally linear, the results from different polling places, as extremely small digital files, are easily and instantly aggregated as highly secure digital files that are very difficult to alter because they can be checked against the individual votes retained in the polling place machines. The fact that voting machine fraud is widespread in some countries simply highlights the need for legislation for machines and procedures to be rigidly controlled. As outlined in links given previously, individual voters can choose to receive anonymous receipts showing their actual vote as scanned and/or as approved on screen, that they can the check that their vote was actually correctly recorded and counted. Further, the online semi-real-time output summaries from individual polling stations can be made transparent to the media, public, candidates and parties. All this make voting fraud difficult and auditing easy.

    The fact is DCAP/DPAP can fix PR’s serious fault that it can give parties more seats than they deserve – as I have documented. So, your claim that: “(The Israeli system) is a fair system” is clearly not necessarily true. Also, while “Voters would be very reluctant to vote for a party that could form a coalition with a party they despise. (and) Pre-election promises about forming coalitions are usually widely known and adhered to,” there are plenty of Israeli and Kiwi voters, who despair over parties and candidates betraying their trust – plus Aussie voters betrayed where promised policies are ignored etc.
    While traditional Preferential Vote counting is a slow error-prone process because candidates are eliminated and preferences distributed (often more than 100 times in a mathematically chaotic process with numerous unpredictable tipping points) DPAP requires no time-wasting sifting through preferences. DPAP never distributes preferences – but all preferences are taken into account fairly. DPAP never “eliminates” any Candidate or Party in the count, all are accurately rated into a hierarchy. Everything is decided in a quick efficient linear manner.

    In summary, if you want to guarantee a fair and just level playing field, then Preferential Voting using DPAP’s fair counting system is required in a Proportional Representation system, even when voting for a large number of representatives. While voters wanting to ensure a fair and just result need to fill in more preferences, voters have the option to vote as little or much as they choose and all votes are counted equally.
  • commented on A fair voting system 2022-06-23 12:24:58 +1000
    Erik,
    Preferential voting for multiple seats in a single electorate using proportional representation (PR), would not achieve much at all. There would hardly be any difference in outcome compared to voting for a single candidate.
    I agree that PR is difficult to achieve. It would require a constitutional change in Australia. I do not agree that it is difficult to implement. It would make life easier for the voters, the AEC, and government. And as far as fairness is concerned – it is unbeatable.

    I do think your PLERS is a fairer system, compared to existing preferential voting and other alternatives. However, it requires a spreadsheet to process results. The existing system has a method that can be counted manually by stacking and eliminating votes in a process that is easily checked and monitored – by people. It is slow, but traceable.
    Your method (PLERS) requires data-entry into a spreadsheet – which I guarantee you is a much slower and error-prone process. Preferably this would be done on 3 spreadsheets simultaneously, so that the results can be compared. If they don’t match – start again. If you were to combine PLERS with voting for multiple seats in a single electorate using proportional representation, i.e. all of Australia in a federal election, you would also have to combine spreadsheets from regional counting centres in a country-wide spreadsheet. Another error-prone level of complexity. Mistakes are inevitable and voters would lose confidence. I foresee very long wait times before election results are confirmed.
    PLERS would be OK if we got the input for the spreadsheets directly from a voting machine. However voting machines are not allowed in Australia – and I agree with that. It is too easy to manipulate – as is the merging of spreadsheets.

    Forgive me for my opinion, but I still dislike any form of preferential voting – even PLERS, because it is simply too complex and achieves nothing in a PR system.