I didn’t bother posting this story on the week-end, the AEC were investigating the dodgy shenanigans in the electorate of Indi at last year’s September election. The story itself is alarming not just for Indi citizens but all Australians who expect elections to be honest and their vote being true . Cathy McGowan is no more independent than I am, however there is more news on this story today and I will post the update later. Batch of ‘false’ votes tars Cathy McGowan’s Indi win The Australian | September 27, 2014 12:00AM Hedley Thomas National Chief Correspondent Brisbane Batch of ‘false’ votes tars Indi win Indi member Cathy McGowan sits in parliament. Picture: Gary Ramage Source: News Limited A SPATE of allegedly false voter enrolments in a key seat in last year’s federal election contributed to the surprise defeat of the Liberal Party’s Sophie Mirabella. Independent Cathy McGowan’s 439-vote winning margin in the Victorian rural seat of Indi came after a number of her dedicated younger backers allegedly engaged in electoral fraud. They switched voter enrolments to Indi in the weeks before the September 7 election, despite living and working in other seats, including those in metropolitan Melbourne, about 300km away, an investigation by The Weekend Australian has found. More than 20 dodgy enrolments of McGowan backers that have come to light so far are at the centre of a high-priority probe by the Australian Electoral Commission’s new integrity unit. The unit as set up after former federal police chief Mick Keelty highlighted the AEC’s slack vote processes in the Senate debacle in Western Australia last year. The ousting of Ms Mirabella, the sitting member since 2001, came after a bitterly fought contest that drew national attention to the youthful campaign for an underdog, powered by grassroots activism and social media. Material obtained by The Weekend Australian shows the new enrolment addresses of a number of Ms McGowan’s backers, who switched to Indi shortly before the rolls closed on August 12 last year, did not reflect their true situation. Their Indi enrolment addresses are contradicted by their home addresses in other seats, job and study locations, previous enrolment data, and their profiles and output on social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. These details and other evidence — including addresses for drivers’ licences, utilities bills and mobile phone records — are under scrutiny as part of the AEC’s investigation. Electoral paper trails show that a number of those in a core group of Ms McGowan’s supporters enrolled in Indi four to eight weeks before the federal election. The involvement of these supporters with ties to the official campaign suggests other false enrolments by voters who may be identified by the AEC’s investigation. Some may have committed an offence against the Commonwealth Criminal Code if they made false written statements to enrol in Indi. Ms McGowan won Indi with 44,741 votes compared with Mrs Mirabella’s 44,302 on a two-candidate-preferred basis. It has not been suggested Ms McGowan knew or encouraged any electoral fraud. The investigation will try to determine if her backers colluded or acted independently. One of the backers has openly admitted that she lived in Melbourne at the time, but had enrolled in Indi to vote for the independent candidate. Electoral data and her social media output show she transferred her enrolment to Indi in July despite having a record of living, working and studying in Melbourne. Another backer was enrolled in Indi from an address in metropolitan seat in Melbourne on the day the rolls closed. At the time of the change the woman was living and working overseas, having left her home and job in Melbourne to move abroad in May last year for a 12-month stint. Part of the enrolment process includes making a declaration to the federal government that the voter currently lives at an address in the electorate, and that this address is the “principal place of residence for at least one month”. The AEC documents warn that “giving false or misleading information is a serious offence”. The AEC warns that “making any false or misleading statement in any enrolment or electoral papers” is punishable under the federal Criminal Code, with a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment. Acting Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said yesterday in relation to the Indi enrolments: “I am taking such matters very seriously. I have asked for the AEC examination of this information to be given the highest priority.” Mr Rogers said he had tasked the AEC’s Electoral Integrity Unit to “examine the enrolment details of a number of electors who were enrolled in the division of Indi at the 2013 federal election”. “These investigations are continuing at the present time,” he said. “Once the task is completed — which I expect to be soon — if there is any doubt at all regarding the enrolments I will take further steps, including if necessary, referral to the AFP.” Ms Mirabella was the only incumbent federal Liberal parliamentarian to lose her seat, with a decisive swing against her of 7 per cent on first preferences — despite an average swing in favour of the Coalition in Victoria of 5.1 per cent. A number of voters switched their enrolment addresses to Indi after going to an April 7, 2013, strategy meeting in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy where a plan for Ms McGowan to run as the independent candidate was agreed to by those who attended. The backers called themselves “Indi Expats”, as many had grown up in Indi and retained family links despite having moved away for study and work in Melbourne and elsewhere. Ms McGowan, asked by The Weekend Australian yesterday if she believed there had been any deliberate collusion to bolster her vote, said: “I don’t know, I can’t say about that.” She added that if it occurred “I will cross that bridge when I come to it”. She said if there was any wrongdoing, it would be on a small scale. “I can’t speak for them,” she said. “That (AEC) investigation has to be done and it will be done — that is right and proper. “We encouraged young people wherever we could find them, we asked ‘Are you enrolled?’ and ‘Can you get others to enrol? “There were discussions about ‘Where is your permanent address — is it in Melbourne where you live now, or is it here where you are going home (on holidays and to visit family)?’ “Numbers of young people made their own decisions about what they would do. I would be very surprised if there were 200 who did that.” Ms Mirabella, who has kept a low profile since last September, refused to be interviewed about the matters. She said in a written statement: “The integrity of our electoral system is paramount and I know the Australian Electoral Commission takes these matters very seriously.” Senior Liberal Party officials raised concerns with federal parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters earlier this year about electoral fraud involving voters “deliberately re-enrolling at incorrect addresses” in an unnamed seat, believed to be Indi. “In some cases these fraudulent re-enrolments may have been part of a co-ordinated effort,” the party said. Between May 31 and August 31 last year, the number of voters enrolled in Indi rose strongly by 1838 — easily outpacing rises in the two adjoining rural seats that also share the NSW border: Murray (1108 additional voters) and Gippsland (1190). Official AEC enrolment figures show that in the final month before the September 7 poll, Indi’s total increased by 1479 people, reflecting a monthly rate of growth of 1.52 per cent compared with rates of 0.96 per cent for Murray and 1.09 per cent for Gippsland. The only rural Victorian seat with a higher enrolment growth rate in the last month before the poll was McMillan (1.84 per cent) in the state’s southeast. The differences may be due to economic factors and strong campaigning to urge people to enrol to vote.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:28:52 +0000
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