The Secret World of Electoral Fraud

After the recent South Australian election, a family-run operation, calling itself “the Election Team”, claimed to have voted 159 times. It was an unusual but effective way of drawing attention to the fact that our voting system is a scandalous shambles and tailor-made for fraud.

Based on a system of honesty no business would accept, the system leaks like a bucket with a hundred holes. The most obvious opportunity for fraud is that no one is asked to show identification to prove they are who they claim to be when they roll up to vote. These days, ID is required for most transactions, from registering a dog and hiring a bicycle to opening a bank account. Yet it is not required for those who will determine Australia’s future.

The South Australian Opposition Leader, Isobel Redmond, commented: “As it stands, there’s nothing to stop people going from polling booth to polling booth, even as themselves, let alone as someone else. There have been elections won and lost on a single vote, so it doesn’t take many [to change a result].”

The South Australian Electoral Commissioner, Kay Mousley, admitted that the claims that the family stole the identities of other voters were feasible and that there are no checks on polling day to stop individuals voting in false names. She said she was taking the anonymous letter “very seriously”—a refreshingly honest but unusual attitude from an Electoral Commissioner.

But taking things “seriously” is one thing; being able to do anything about them is another. It’s no use Ms Mousley trumpeting that there are penalties of up to $2500 and six months in jail for people who vote multiple times, because our secret ballot is just that: secret. Those people can never be found; they and their votes are untraceable.

So did the Election Team, or anyone else for that matter, alter the outcome of the election? Nobody knows. Once a vote goes into the ballot box it’s counted and there is no way of tracing or identifying it as coming from a phantom voter, a person multiple-voting in their own or a false name, or voting from the grave.

Electoral fraud is an invisible crime.

The original “Australian ballot” of 1856, later adopted by Britain and other Western countries, had ballot papers numbered and the butts kept, so if an election were disputed the votes were traceable. But under some specious issue of privacy, numbered butts were gradually discarded and the limited secret ballot became a ballot of total and impenetrable secrecy. Other changes followed, until what was previously a secure system has been eaten away to a shell under the guise of “reform”.

In 1983–84 Hawke and Beazley abolished subdivisional rolls, claiming it would make it “easier” to vote, although no one had said it was difficult. This “reform” opened up all polling booths to a voter in his or her electorate (previously a person’s name was on the roll in a strictly limited number of booths). This change, indeed, made it much “easier” for those intent on malpractice to vote multiple times at multiple booths in their own or fictitious names. The Liberal Party, asleep at the wheel, endorsed the “reform”.

To put a name on the electoral roll, all a person had to do was fill out a form from the post office with a false name (his cat or budgie?) at a false address (vacant block, caravan park?), post it to the Electoral Commission and, hey presto, on polling day a non-existent person would help their chosen party win power. As the late South Australian state MP Alan Viney once said: “You can enrol your dog; he can’t vote, but you can do it for him!”

On Queensland’s Bribie Island, investigative journalist Bob Bottom found hundreds of false names at “addresses” on the sea side of the street which, had they existed, would have been in the water.

In 2007, the Howard government, perhaps wanting to be seen to be “doing something”, announced they were “tightening” the electoral act: proof of identify before a witness would be required when putting your name on the electoral roll. But the occupations and professions that qualify someone to be a “witness” embrace almost everyone, so unless you’re wanted by Interpol, the change is a meaningless sham. Half a dozen people “witnessing” each other’s false names, then each voting at several booths, could change en election result. At the last federal election, Fran Bailey won the seat of McEwen in Victoria by just thirty-one votes.

To many, the idea of a “rigged” election in Australia is momentarily unsettling and leads immediately to a sort of unbelieving “it couldn’t happen here” denial. After an election there may be a few rumbles about a name being crossed off before someone has voted, but relief that the election is over and the ads are now off the television, and a general turn-off towards politicians, make the whole thing pretty much of a yawn. “What can we do about it anyway?” is the approach; it’s easier to forget it all and go paint the boat.

Those politicians heading for Canberra have other things on their minds and just heave a collective sign of relief as they pack their bags. Those who miss out fear appearing to be suffering from sour grapes if they question the system that lost them power. They no longer have party backing and are out in the cold. Cost and time constraints make it unrealistic to mount a challenge.

Members of the Joint Standing Committees on Electoral Matters that follow every election have repeatedly highlighted the system’s gross inadequacies, but the attitude of that supposed guardian of our democracy, the Electoral Commission, has consistently been defensive and dismissive of the need for change. As former independent MP Ted Mack put it: “If you ask the Electoral Commission to investigate its own running of the election it will always come up smelling roses.” The Howard government, when it controlled the Senate, had the opportunity to legislate for ID at the polling booth, but never went ahead.

The Electoral Act is long and complicated and there’s no room here to go into the opportunities for fraud in pre-poll, postal and provisional voting and habitation reviews—people’s eyes just glaze over. But requiring an intending voter to produce ID is the first and simplest step to restoring some honesty to the system.

Other people, including Isobel Redmond, go further. She advocates physical markings for people who have voted. “The simple system is to get a black light-visible stamp that is put on your hand when you vote,” she said, adding that if elected she would treat voter identification “as a matter of some urgency”. It’s a pity that was not to be.

The desire for power is an extraordinary motivator. It drives people to do strange things. If something can be done, who would be so naive as to claim it has not been or will not be done? As Graham Richardson so succinctly put it: “Whatever it takes …”

Julia Patrick is a Sydney-based freelance writer on social topics.