Thread: Tasmania the lectoral system and rules.

Not once the voting paper is in the box.

If you scribble or cross out numbers outside the box doesn't it become informal.

The tally people or whatever they call them see anything that is not formal on the forms and put then straight onto the invalid pile.

I say this because for a number of years my father in law ran several polling booths and he said this was their instructions when counting.

So that vote was invalid because they refused to give to the person a new ballot paper?
That it is not good.

I understood that the only thng that counted was what was in the boxes and anything else was ignored e.g people sometimes write statements of opinion on ballot papers e.g. 'I hate ...' or "Garbage!' etc. Its irrelevant.

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But then could it not be argued that if you give someone a second ballot paper to rectify a mistake that they could put two ballot papers in the box?

I think we should just be happy that we live in Australia and not some 3rd world pseudo democracy. It's not perfect, but better than most!

Nino.

Originally Posted by landy

But then could it not be argued that if you give someone a second ballot paper to rectify a mistake that they could put two ballot papers in the box?

I think we should just be happy that we live in Australia and not some 3rd world pseudo democracy. It's not perfect, but better than most!

Nino.

There is no chance to put two ballot papers because the first one is destroyed in front of the person on the desk before issue the second ballot paper.
Remember the problem that we have in the last federal election and in the one in WA. Our system it is not perfect but there are not excuses to not bring the electronic vote forward to avoid people vote up to 15 times or get ballot boxes missing.
In some so called"3rd word countries" they still have manual vote like here but to vote to have to show an electorate roll document were is your photo and finger print. Not other person can vote in your behalf.

Each state is slightly different, however, each candidate is generally entitled to have a number of officially registered scrutineers present during the count at each counting place.

1. Any scrutineer that produces a pencil or eraser would be reported immediately to the nearest returning officer at best, or at worst beaten in the carpark by bovver boys*.

2. Any ballots for which the scrutineers can't agree are put in the invalid pile and are personally scrutineered by the returning officer or EC official who makes the call based on state guidelines. In most cases the scrutineers are briefed by the EC and there are actually few discrepancies. In effect, unless the count is real tight (known very early) the scrutineers almost always agree and get it right.

3. Everyone only gets one ballot paper. There is less risk of fraud this way. If second papers were distributed, what would happen to the first? Too risky. Far easier to allow the EC official to decide on the validity of each paper.

4. Counting voting papers is actually one of the ways the EC uses to validate the vote. Think WA Senate. If extra papers were given out, it would never balance, and fidelity would be lost.

5. I look forward to the day when all Ozzies are micro chipped or bar coded. Walk into the ballot place, scan yourself, vote, walk out. No need for paper.

*NSW in the 80's

Cheers
Ralph