The Federal Opposition called yesterday for voluntary voting.
The call came in a minority report by coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.
They argued that compulsory voting was undermining efforts to prevent electoral fraud and it should be abolished.
The committee was reporting on the 1993 election. Most of its recommendations were unanimous and technical, usually concentrating on machinery matters to make elections and the count go smoother _ perhaps suggesting the state of Australian democracy is reasonably healthy.
However, the minority, comprising Liberals David Connolly and Senators Nick Minchin and John Tierney and National Michael Cobb argued for voluntary voting.
They said the Australian Electoral Commission had used the logic “”that there should be as few barriers to people enrolling and voting as possible, because voting is compulsory. Thus in practice compulsory voting underpins a system which has very few checks in place to prevent and detect fraudulent enrolment and voting.
“”The false logic extends to the system of voting itself, which claims that full preferential voting is too complicated for all the people who are forced to vote, and should be simplified.
“”Compulsory voting . . . is thus a major contributor to the maintenance of an electoral system the integrity of which a growing number of Australians now doubt. It is also being used as part of a push for a de-facto first-past-the-post voting system.”
The latter was a reference to moves to extend the Senate party vote system to the House of Representatives so people only have to mark a 1 and the vote will follow preferences lodged by the party with the Electoral Commission.
The report of the full committee, including the dissenters, recommended a public education campaign on preferential voting. It noted a decline in the informal vote since the high in 1987.
Other recommendations included:
Clarification of the “”foreign allegiance” fiasco which saw Phil Cleary’s election in Wills invalidated by the High Court with a change to the citizenship oath.
Further computerisation of the Senate count.
Use of party logos on television advertisements to replace the bullet-like “”written and spoken by . . . ” attribution.
Full addresses need not be published on Letter to the Editor at election time.
More signatures required for nominations to Parliament.
Changes to speed up the count on election night, including improvements to the two-party-preferred count which was introduced successfully in 1993.
The committee noted that the National Tally Room was no longer needed technologically, but did not suggest its abolition.
It said also, “”Fraud is not a significant occurrence and did not influence any result in the 1993 federal election.”
It noted there had been no prosecutions for bribery and thought therefore that Liberal and Labor concerns about giving food and drink to electors did not warrant a clarification of present provisions _ despite a recent NSW case of exaggerated electoral promises being construed by the courts as bribery sufficient to invalidate an election.
The committee noted that the real cost of elections per voter had fallen constantly since 1984. The 1993 poll had cost $4.1 million plus $1.4 million in public funding.