Surge in Voting Errors in Aged Care and Hospitals Under Scrutiny

Surge of informal votes in hospitals and aged care casts doubt over close results

An almost threefold increase in the rate of informal voting in healthcare settings nationwide has drawn official scrutiny and raised questions over the outcome in key contests.

Breaking down the informal vote

The vote count is now getting to a point where pretty much all primary votes have been counted, even if we don’t have all of the preference counts yet. So that means we can now begin to analyse the informal voting trends – where it went up or down, and what some of the causes could be. I also wanted to look into a story that appeared yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald which claimed that there had been a surge in informal rates in voting at s…

The election exposed weaknesses in Australian democracy – but the next parliament can fix them - The Australia Institute

Australia has some very strong democratic institutions – like an independent electoral commission, Saturday voting, full preferential voting and compulsory voting. These ensure that elections are free from corruption; that electorate boundaries are not based on partisan bias; and that most Australians turn out to vote. They are evidence of Australia’s proud history as an The post The election exposed weaknesses in Australian democracy – but the …