Thousands of voters disenfranchised at state election

David Killick | Mercury Newspaper | 22 July 2021  

Nearly 4000 voters missed out on having their say in a recent election because of staff errors or because ballot papers were not available at the polling place they attended.

ALMOST four thousand voters missed out on having their say in recent Legislative Council election because of staff errors or because ballot papers were not available at the polling place they attended.

The May 1 state election was the first time in Tasmania that upper house elections were held on the same day at the lower house ballots.

There were more than 50,000 electors eligible to vote in the Legislative Council divisions and turnout was just under 82 per cent in both divisions.

A report from the Tasmanian Electoral Commission says because of the snap election campaign and a lack of resources, ballot papers for the two divisions could not be provided at every polling place in Tasmania.

“Even with assistance from other Australian electoral commissions, there was no ability to provide enough electronic netbooks and other election material to enable all polling places to be appointed as dual polling places,” the report said.

But despite an extensive awareness campaign “almost 4000 Derwent and Windermere electors appear to have voted at the State election but not at the Legislative Council elections”.

Of those just over 3400 went to polling places that did not have ballot papers and another 344 were given only a House of Assembly ballot by mistake.

The report concluded that the errors did not affect the overall result.

“The establishment of dual voting services was designed and rolled out in a very short period and the Commission holds the view that, in the broader sense, these elections were successfully run.

“However, the lower turn out of electors at the Legislative Council election in comparison to the turn out for the State election was a concern for the Commission.

“The Commission unreservedly apologises to the electors disenfranchised by administrative error.”

Independent member for Nelson Meg Webb said the report revealed “a shocking failure of our democratic process.

“Far from being an end to this matter, this report is a compelling argument that the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into the administration of the 2021 elections needs to be supported in the lower house and established as promptly as possible,” she said.

“Such an inquiry would provide a publicly accountable way for evidence such as this report to be examined along with other expert advice and information and would produce findings and recommendations that would inform the conduct of future elections in this state. Most importantly, such an Inquiry is the only way to fully restore public confidence in our state’s electoral system and the health of our democracy.

“The upper house has voted in support of this inquiry, now the Government must prove it has nothing to hide by supporting its establishment in the Lower House.”

See Meg’s Motion calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the 2021 state and Legislative Council elections.