A staggering number of votes at the Federal Election were invalid

A staggering 830,000 votes cast at the Federal Election were deemed informal votes, up from 720,195 in 2016. Is it finally time to implement measures at the next election that make it impossible to submit an informal vote?

The introduction of electronic ballots at voting places on election day would see a vast increase in counting accuracy by minimising human error and most importantly would reduce the number of informal votes to zero.

While there are suggestions in the media that online voting should be allowed, there are stil too many security risks posed to consider such a change.

What do you think? Should the Federal Government lead the way by introducing electronic ballet voting?

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38 comments

Be thankful that you live in a democracy where you can vote. If you don't like to vote then go and live in a place like North Korea or Saudi Arabia where you definately won't have to vote.

and also the UK.!   The way to do away with the invalid votes, is to a) do away wioth com[pulsorty voting  ( unde a Democracy !!?? and b) do away with the stupidest system of Preferences,  having to vote foe a person you have never heard of or seen, you wouldn't know from a bar of soap.  I don't know who introduced this  disgustiong, stupid, time wasting Hare Clark system, but the governmenbt that did, mad a huge mistake.  All those invalid votes arer because people get fed up tryiong to work out who to number, and also knowing that their vote will go to another party, e.g. Clive Palmer vote went to the NLP, bloody ridiculous.. In the UK, you just put a  X against the person you want in representinvg your party you want in,  that's it. How simple. The one with the most votes at count, gets in. !

I didn't like what happened over the last 10 years with deposed PMs and other illegal actions and breaking rules and being dishonest I did not like any party 

HOW CAN I REGISTER THAT except with an informal vote

They all need to grow up and act like respecable people I am sick of the  carry on in the house abuse and Bad communication skills

Yes I am lucky and the Members of Parliamant are lucky but they did not deserve my vote    SORRY

 

Frank, I see our voting system as better than the UK 'first past the post" or the US presidential electoral college system.

In the UK a candidate can win with less than 33% of the vote (meaning 64% voted for another candidate). The Brexit referundum shows the deficiencies of the UK system, about 34% of the electorate voted to leave and about 32% voted to stay, in either case hardly a mandate for either proposition.

In the US electoral college system a candidate can win even though they received less 'popular' votes than their opponent (eg at last election Clinton received about 3 million more popular votes but still lost the election), hardly a democratic system.

Virgina may I suggest an alternative to voting informal, give your number 1 vote to an independant or minor party, that hurts trhe major parties more than an informal vote

most people don't really know that they don't have to vote...you only have to attend at a polling station to get your name ticked off the voters list...

 

While I quite like the Hare Clark system FrankC, I think you have a point. If we properly valued peoples opinion we would not throw out their vote because they neglect to number all those we presently require. The present approach permits votes to trickle down to the nextmost supposedly favoured hopeful. That would leave those who fill in too few names under represented. That, however, is much better than to not be represented at all simply because we want to make supposedly ideal rules for voting.

We should take it that if there are any voting boxes ticked those will be recorded against those names. That means limiting invalid votes to those where there are no marks in any boxes. We should accept any downside.

A problem with the Hare Clark system is what it is usually lauded for. It allows minor groups to get started. It only does that by artificially amplifying their support and that is not acceptable. At the more recognisable level, primarily now with the major parties it fine tunes our preferencing and that seems very good to me. 

they should put a box on the bottom of the ballot paper "NOTA" none of the above so people can let polititions what they think of them

I like that !  :)

I must have missed a very vital piece of news regarding our electoral obligations.

When and where was it announced that politicians (note correct spelling) now can read each and every one of our ballot papers?

Secondly how do they know that it was YOU hat wrote NOTA on the bottom of your ballot paper.  Do you sign yours?

Time to get your medication checked.  NO-ONE other than AEC staff see your ballot paper, it has no identifying information, and no politician will ever see it.  So write what you like on it, you're just wasting your time.  

Try and come up with something more functional to start the improvement process.

they should put a box on the bottom of the ballot paper "NOTA" none of the above so people can let polititions what they think of them

 

Personally, I can see both sides of the mandatory voting and optional voting debate. I never fail to vote in every election but I'd be happier if I had the choice of whether to vote or not.


Maybe your first sentence Trumpy should have read " Be thankful that you live in a democracy where you HAVE THE CHOICE TO vote OR NOT."


There are nearly 200 countries in the world and just over 20 of them have compulsory voting.


Australia is in this minority group and voting is mandatory. Having scrolled through the other nations in this small group, I find that there are very few that we would have a lot in common with. Quite a few are in South America.


As you will probably find in most places, people who don't want to vote, but are not given a choice, ( by their democratically elected government) will toddle on down to the polling booth to register their informal vote. We all know that they're only there to get their name ticked off the list and thus avoiding a fine for not voting.

Informal voting has been happening for years and will continue to happen with mandatory voting.


The other possible explanation as to why there are nearly a million informal votes, out of 16M voters, is that people are vastly more stupid than we could even imagine and cannot follow the printed directions for filling in an electoral paper.

Compulsory voting provides a vote catcher for any political party which offers a sweetner to a particular group. Generally this group would have little interest in governmental activities but do have an ear for say "a pay rise if you elect me." I would rather see optional voting so that those who feel strongly about voting are motivated to do some research.

Alan, you make a very good point, what sort of free democratic country forces people to vote?

I dont know that people are not smart enough to fill out the form? Perhaps?  However there are more than one million people in Australia who do not speak english. 

Compulsory voting provides a vote catcher for any political party which offers a sweetner to a particular group. Generally this group would have little interest in governmental activities but do have an ear for say "a pay rise if you elect me." I would rather see optional voting so that those who feel strongly about voting are motivated to do some research.

Alan, you make a very good point, what sort of free democratic country forces people to vote?

I dont know that people are not smart enough to fill out the form? Perhaps?  However there are more than one million people in Australia who do not speak english. 

I worked at a polling booth. 10% of all senate papers were completely left blank whereas House of Reps had only 2 informal. We had a lot of senior voters who struggled in the small voting screens. I think the senate paper was too long and unmanageable so it was easier to leave it blank.

That's interesting Camino66, and understandable. I think you could be right in thinking it all just got too hard for some seniors.

I did a postal vote for the first time at this election and I was glad I did when I saw the Senate paper.  Doing a postal vote at home gives you time to really study it before you fill it in, and you can spread it out on a table. 

It's the best option for seniors I reckon, wish I had applied for it before this.

The people who had invalid votes did this as a protest. 

I know may people who felt they couldn’t vote for anyone as they had no respect for anyone and did not want to be responsible for voting anyof them in. 

It was a protest to let the politicians know they are not happy with who turns their country. 

On the surface it seems likely to be a lame protest OL. On the other hand the 1982 "No Dams" ballot paper protest in Tasmania was certainly heard.

Make it invalid to vote informal at polling booths by installing touch screen monitors which would not accept an informal vote. If the voter refuses to vote formally, then they MUST touch the "no vote registered" button. At least the AEC would have no informal votes to count. And would save paper & cardboard boxes.

A good thought TBA 

It's more important that we finally do away with compulsory voting! Informal voting is a protest vote against being forced to vote for politicians that don't represent our views.

Regardless of the voting syetem, l firmly believe that elected representatives (House of Reps) should only be in parliament for 2 terms. 

They certainly should have a vision which lasts longer than 3 years.

On-line voting in elections and likely more frequent referenda will have its day. I doubt that day is terribly close since hacking remains fairly clearly a problem at large.

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