Rex Jory: End this election farce by banning political posters and how-to-vote cards

It’s time to get rid of election posters and how-to-vote cards, writes Rex Jory. In the internet era, both are obsolete and absurd.

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The outgoing Labor member for Adelaide, Kate Ellis, wants to ban election posters — so-called corflutes — featuring five-year-old, airbrushed photographs of political candidates. She’s right.

But let’s not stop there, Kate. Let’s also do away with how-to-vote cards at polling booths. More of that in a moment.

First, street posters. They are attached to thousands of poles, posts and fences across Australia and are ugly, distracting and of doubtful electoral benefit.

Corflutes are an outdated, clumsy, expensive 20th-century weapon to wield in a 21st-century, hi-tech electoral battle.

They are an environmental blight on the streetscape, a major form of visual pollution.

They are also quite possibly a distraction to motorists trying to decipher the cryptic poster messages.

Last week, in the half a kilometre at the city end of Anzac Hwy between West Tce and Greenhill Rd, there were almost 100 corflute posters festooning light poles. Some poles had three separate posters. It is as ugly as it is meaningless.

Anyone driving along Anzac Hwy would not have a hope of working out who was who.

People stuck in peak-hour traffic are hardly likely to be thinking about politicians or how they will vote on May 18. If anything they would be feeling hostile towards politicians.

But there is another issue. The Adelaide City Council website says, in part: “Signs must not be more than one square metre in area and be limited to one sign per site/pole.

“A breach or noncompliance with any of the terms and conditions will invalidate the approval (to display signs) and may result in prosecution.”

Perhaps the Australian Electoral Commission or the ACC should have a look at Anzac Hwy and many other areas featuring high-density posters. Three on a post, breaching the council by-laws, are common.

But politicians, who vote themselves the right to put up posters at election time, should vote to ban them after the May 18 poll. Their time is up.

Cartoonist Peter Broelman's view on election posters.

And so is the confetti of how-to-vote cards, which are stuffed under the noses of voters as they approach polling booths at federal, state and local government elections.

Candidates and parties believe how-to-vote cards are the last-gasp attempt to desperately pinch a vote or two after a high-exposure campaign over the previous four weeks.

In this age of a highly visible and highly concentrated media onslaught, most people have a pretty good idea how they are going to vote.

To try to influence voters two minutes before they receive their ballot papers is treating them like dills. Perhaps some people do need help in allocating preferences.

OK, use newspaper advertising and letterbox drops to educate those people who are not quite sure.

Compulsory voting may be another justification to arm people on how they should vote or distribute preferences. But the bunfight, the sideshow of party faithful who flock around people arriving at most polling booths, is a disgrace.

At some booths, party workers arrive early to stake out the best positions to peddle their leaflet prop­aganda. Walking to some polling booths can be intimidating, like a press conference for a rock singer arriving at an airport terminal.

Party workers literally push their cards under your nose. They call out to grab voter attention.

If you take one how-to-vote card and reject the rest you are publicly identifying how you are going to vote.

If you take them all it’s a shameful waste of paper. What are the how-to-vote cards designed for? Are they there to help the democratic process by guiding uncertain voters how to fill out their cards?

Or are they simply a last-minute tool used by parties to snare an extra vote or two?

How-to-vote cards clearly benefit parties and candidates with big cheque books. Minor parties and independents cannot afford to print tens of thousands of how-to-vote cards and they don’t have the troops on the ground to distribute them.

Don’t distribute them at all. Like street posters, they should be banned from future elections.