ID Cards for Voting –a remedy in search of a problem
The Stafford By-election on July 19th will be the first time in Australia that voters will have to produce an identity card before they will be issued with a ballot paper.
In introducing the changes in the Queensland parliament in November 2013 the Attorney general, Mr. Bleijie, did not cite any evidence of electoral fraud but rather claimed the changes were to reduce “the potential of electoral fraud.”
At the Committee hearings to review the Bill on December 12th 2013, the Independent member for Nicklin, Mr. Wellington, asked the Assistant Director General for Strategic Policy in the Justice department, Mrs. Lang, for any evidence of voter fraud and none was given.
Even after the Redcliffe by-election where the Attorney General, Mr. Bleijie, asked the electoral commission to inquire into events at the polling booths, considerable work was carried out in relation to behavior but there was not one word about electoral fraud.
The other instance where the Queensland Electoral Commission has been asked to account for their actions was the appeal of the result in the electorate of Chatsworth after the 2009 election.
The Court found there were 30 instances of people apparently voting twice.
28 of those were electoral officer error caused by the incorrect crossing out by electoral officers of people with the same surname living at the same address.
The other two were elderly voters who were confused with the voting procedure when offered a postal vote and an electoral visitor vote.
Even then the Court did not overturn the result and no evidence of fraud was unearthed.
After each federal election, the Australian Electoral Commission conducts an investigation into the poll and has not found one instance where a person who voted more than once would have changed the result.
The overwhelming majority of people who vote more than once are elderly, or have poor literacy skills, or have a low comprehension of the electoral process.
Most of those who allegedly voted twice are found to be clerical errors similar to those uncovered in the Chatsworth case.
What then is the problem the Government is taking such seemingly drastic measures to fix?
Given that the issue of clerical error appears to be the main cause and given that most of the clerks who work on Election Day are hired only for the day, perhaps more effort should be placed into training those people for the task.
The Government has provided no evidence for taking such a bureaucratic red tape approach to the conduct of elections in Queensland.
An inquiry should be held after Stafford to ascertain whether the new approach has eliminated a problem that the Government itself could not produce any evidence of.
Also, the Government needs to be transparent in the increased cost of the by - election caused by the need to engage extra staff who will be required for declaration votes where people have no proof of identity.
There is a need for proper engagement in the electoral process but the real issue is not electoral fraud in this country but the disillusionment of ordinary Australians in the democratic process as the Lowy Institute found in its recent research.
We need to encourage more people to properly enrol and exercise their democratic right to vote.
The Government would be better to direct its efforts into this area rather than regulating to stop a problem that does not exist.
* John Mickel was Queensland Parliament's Speaker from April 2009 to May 2012 and was Labor Member for Logan from June 1998 to March 2012 when he retired. He is a sessional academic at QUT.
