Peter Dutton to complain to AEC over Voice voting method

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Australian Electoral Commission has pleaded with Australians to write either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on their ballot paper. Commissioner Tom Rogers says a tick will also ‘likely’ be accepted as a formal vote, but a cross won’t be.

Transcript

00:00 The Australian Electoral Commission is urging all Australians to follow the instructions

00:06 on the ballot paper and write clearly and specifically in English yes or no when they

00:11 vote in the upcoming voice to parliament referendum.

00:15 And both sides of politics would agree that that's irrefutably the correct instructions.

00:20 But this particular debate stemmed from the appearance of the AEC Commissioner Tom Rogers

00:26 on Sky News where he explained that the AEC does have savings provisions which means that

00:31 when a voter's intention is clear that that would be counted as a formal vote.

00:36 So he said that a tick would likely be counted as a yes vote but a cross would not be counted

00:43 as a no vote and that's because a cross can often represent a checkmark meaning that it

00:48 would be ambiguous whether that voter wanted to vote yes or no.

00:53 He also says that depending on how clear the tick is that that also may not count.

00:58 But the opposition leader Peter Dutton said that this counting method was completely outrageous

01:05 and stinks and he says that he's contacting the AEC about this process.

01:11 He says that counting, he says he wants a tick mark to be counted as yes but a cross

01:16 to be counted as a no and that anything else would favour one side in a democratic election

01:22 and would result in a dodgy process.

01:27 Alison how has the Electoral Commission now responded?

01:32 Well the AEC says that this is simply not up to them, that this is what's in the legislation

01:38 and has been since 1988 and been used in federal elections since then and multiple referenda.

01:44 So they say they have no discretion to simply ignore the law.

01:48 They also say that a Y or an N on the ballot paper could also be counted but also may not

01:54 be if the handwriting was unclear.

01:57 But in that original interview with the AEC Commissioner Tom Rogers he said he was nervous

02:02 about even talking about these alternative options because he doesn't want to provide

02:07 mixed messaging or confuse Australians when they go to vote.

02:12 But the AEC also wanted to point out the scale and size of this potential problem.

02:18 They say that the vast, vast majority of Australians are expected to follow the instructions on

02:24 the voting on the ballot paper and vote correctly and that in the 1999 referendum less than

02:30 one percent of votes, 0.86 percent of votes were informal votes and only a few of them

02:37 were related to ticks or crosses.

02:40 The AEC has also confirmed that they have received a letter from the federal opposition

02:45 leader Peter Dutton and will be responding swiftly.

02:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Category

Transcript

Recommended