ABC Digital News-One in 16 votes at Tasmania’s recent state election didn’t count
Adam Langenberg | ABC NEWS – Digital Online | 4 April 2024
One in 16 votes at Tasmania’s recent state election didn’t count
Tasmania has an unwanted new claim to fame: it’s the country’s leader in votes that won’t count.
At last month’s state election, 6.31 per cent of voters cast informal votes, meaning they either deliberately or accidentally didn’t comply with the rules, and weren’t counted towards the election result.
It’s up from 5.13 per cent at the 2021 Tasmanian state election.
Psephologist Kevin Bonham said the rate was “too high”.
“The informal rate should ideally not be more than 5 per cent, Dr Bonham said.
“This is the second-highest informal voting rate in a Tasmanian election ever. I think it’s the highest Australian informal voting rate in the state or territory election for 33 years.”
Dr Bonham said he saw some examples where a change in the size of Tasmania’s parliament had caused a previously valid vote to not be counted.
At this election, voters elected seven MPs in each of the state’s five electorates, requiring them to number at least seven boxes, in order, for their vote to count.
At previous elections, voters were only required to number five boxes.
“I certainly saw some votes that were not counted under the new rules that would have been counted under the old rules where you only had to number one to five,” he said.
“I saw several versions where the voter had made a mistake somewhere in the process of getting to one to seven, so for instance they may have doubled or omitted a six or doubled or omitted a seven.
“There will be cases of people voting one to five and stopping, but I didn’t see any of those personally.”
Tasmanian Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey said it was too early to know what had caused the rise in informal votes.
“It could be that there’s more people choosing not to vote and give preferences, it could be that it’s due to the change of formality from five to seven. We won’t know that until we’ve completed the ballot paper survey post-election,” he said.
In their post-election reports, the electoral commission categorises how many of the informal votes were deliberate and accidental.
At the 2021 state election, 18,455 votes were informal: 43 per cent of those were deliberate, with the ballot paper left blank, or writing only scribbles or messages.
Just over 3,500 of informal votes deemed apparently accidental contained just ticks or crosses, and 3,212 put a number 1 beside multiple candidates.
Votes with 1 to 5 should be counted, Bonham says.
Some politicians have advocated for savings provisions to be introduced, where a vote would still count as long as at least some boxes were correctly numbered.
Dr Bonham had called for one that would have counted all ballot papers that would have been accepted under the old five-member system.
“I think that we should be looking for ways to count people’s votes, not ways to discount them,” Dr Bonham said.
“I think that the Tasmanian rules are absurdly strict and that they should have been special savings provisions in place for this election,” he said.
A Liberal Party spokesperson said there were “no plans to change the current electoral system in relation to informal voting”.
Independent upper house member Meg Webb said any increase in informal voting should be examined carefully, but it was premature to discuss whether savings provisions should be introduced before understanding what had caused the rise.
“The statistics on informal votes from the 2021 state election show that over eight in 10 informal votes at that election would not likely be solved by savings provisions, with more than 40 per cent intentionally informal, and a similar percentage involving mistakes such as the use of ticks and crosses, an absence of a first preference, or two or more first preferences,” she said.
“There isn’t a silver bullet to improve rates of informal voting, however, effective civics and electoral education campaigns in schools, for first-time voters and the general community are essential, and we have the opportunity to greatly improve on that front.”
Ms Webb said the informal vote rise illustrated the importance of establishing a parliamentary committee on electoral matters, which would report on elections and recommend reforms.
“This is standard practice in every other state and federally and is the key driver of electoral reforms and improvements
“It is exactly the kind of essential committee work that should be undertaken by the restored numbers in our parliament,” she said.
View ABC article online
