TWO lawyers who strongly backed independent Cathy McGowan to win the federal seat of Indi are among those in a confidential dossier of 27 alleged enrolment fraud cases referred to the Australian Federal Police yesterday. One of the lawyers with close ties to Ms McGowan switched to Indi shortly before the electoral roll closed on August 12 last year after being enrolled in the federal seat of Melbourne since 2010, The Australian can reveal. Her social media output, deleted since the weekend, described plans for “Indi expats” to celebrate Ms McGowan’s narrow win at a bar in Melbourne in September last year, with the preferred venue in a city suburb “right below my place”. One of the lawyers said she did not believe she had done anything wrong and was seeking legal advice. A third voter under scrutiny is a person close to political contender Jennifer Podesta, who ran in the seat of Indi and directed preferences to Ms McGowan. The person close to Ms Podesta, now Labor’s candidate for the seat of Benambra in the upcoming Victorian election, switched to Indi from a seat in Melbourne in June last year. The Australian was unable to contact Ms Podesta or the person close to her for comment yesterday. The enrolment investigation in Indi, where Liberal incumbent Sophie Mirabella lost by a margin of 439 votes, is a police matter because the Australian Electoral Commission determined there were serious questions to answer. It is an offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code to make a false declaration in a voter enrolment form, punishable by up to a year in prison. AEC acting head Tom Rogers said police had been asked to investigate 27 voters in the Indi electorate, following reports in The Australian that revealed suspicious switches of enrolment by strong backers of Ms McGowan. The number may rise. Mr Rogers referred the allegations to the AFP “as a number of commonwealth laws may have been breached’’, according to a statement from the AEC. The AFP will consider whether all enrolments recorded were accurate. “Significant penalties apply for making a false declaration on an electoral enrolment application,’’ a statement by Mr Rogers said. “The AEC is committed to maintaining the integrity of the electoral roll and takes any allegations of potential electoral irregularities very seriously.” Many of those under investigation who lived, worked and studied in Melbourne became Voice for Indi campaigners who helped Ms McGowan overcome Ms Mirabella’s margin in the rural seat of more than 9 per cent. The referral to police followed a review by the AEC’s Electoral Integrity Unit into the accuracy of enrolment information provided by the voters. The AFP confirmed it had received the referral but declined to comment further. Ms McGowan said she supported any investigation into enrolled voters in Indi allegedly supplying incorrect residential address details before the 2013 federal poll. She said the first she had heard of the allegations was when contacted by The Australian on September 26. “If individuals have made unlawful declarations, these should be fully investigated by the AEC and relevant authorities,’’ she said. “An enrolment is a declaration made by an individual to the AEC and is up to the individual to ensure it is accurate and lawful.’’ Ms McGowan, who is not a subject of the investigation, has not been contacted by either the AEC or the AFP. Senior Liberal Party officials raised concerns with the joint standing committee on electoral matters earlier this year in a formal submission describing electoral fraud in an unnamed seat. “Some evidence has come to the Liberal Party’s attention which suggests the possibility of individuals in the lead-up to the 2013 election deliberately re-enrolling at incorrect addresses — including addresses at which they had previously resided — in an electorate where evidence from social media shows they did not reside,’’ the submission said. theaustralian.au/national-affairs/lawyers-on-indi-voting-fraud-list/story-fn59niix-1227078375345
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 06:21:49 +0000
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