“Comedy of errors” at council election polling booth

HOW did this happen? A volunteer scheduled to hand out how-to-vote cards ended up working for the ECQ handing out ballot papers.

Undated: Generic photo of a hand writing a question mark on a piece of paper.

LIKE a scene out of the British political comedy, Yes Minister, a man scheduled to hand out how-to-vote cards for a Logan candidate on Saturday ended up working for the Electoral Queensland Commission (ECQ) handing out ballot papers.

For three hours on Saturday at the Berrinba East State School polling booth, Ridz Osman, who turned up to help Division 5 candidate Jason Topp, worked alongside other ECQ staff checking people off the electoral roll and handing out Division 2 ballot papers without once having his identification checked.

Ironically, Mr Osman is from Singapore, has never experienced an Australian election and as such is not enrolled to vote.

Mr Osman said he arrived at the Berrinba East booth about 7.20am, went in, asked for the booth team leader and saw a group of people being briefed.

“I assumed the briefing was for me and just joined the crowd,” he said.

Mr Osman said he introduced himself to the team leader as ‘Ridz’ and was assigned to putting up ‘no smoking’ signs and then crowd control.

He said he told ECQ staff that Jason Topp had sent him to help out.

“Then I was assigned to marking off the balloting ... I told them I did not have any log-in ID ... but was told it was a common log in. I did a crash course (about the electoral roll) with someone sitting beside me,” he said.

Ridz Osman

The mix-up was only discovered when Mr Osman signed off at midday and ECQ found out that Jason Topp was a candidate and not an ECQ staffer.

An ECQ spokesperson said the commission was aware of the matter with the Logan volunteer.

“It is under investigation and we are unable to comment pending the outcome,” the spokesperson said.

Mr Osman, who works as an internal auditor, said he could see a few internal control lapses at the booth when he was there.

“First, I wasn’t verified who I am and if I was supposed to be there or not. No I.D. was taken down when I was there even though my name wasn’t in the original list of people supposed to help,” he said.

“I could be have been anyone, I could’ve made off with the ballot papers,” he said.

Mr Osman said it was a comedy of errors as he also did not verify what he was supposed to do before arriving at the polling booth and being a foreigner he did not know what to expect.

Mr Topp said it was a bit of shocker what had happened and hoped it would lead to ECQ’s standard operating procedures being reassessed so it did not happen again.

The candidate said it probably would not affect the election result as Mr Osman was handing out division 2 ballot papers and not those for division 5.

“And I did that poorly anyway. If it had been that I got 2000 votes at Berrinba, they could’ve started asking questions. I suppose it’s just fortunate that I didn’t,” he said.

Mr Topp said he did not find out about the mix up until Mr Osman messaged him on Facebook on Sunday.

He said on Saturday he was just disappointed that Mr Osman had not turned up to help hand out how-to-vote cards.

At another polling booth in Logan at Park Ridge High School, the ECQ ran out of Division 9 ballot papers about 5pm.

The ECQ spokesperson said Division 9 ballot papers were not issued to 29 people.

“This booth had unprecedented and unforeseen popularity, and was the only booth affected in Logan district. We will ensure that it is better resourced at the next electoral event,” the spokesperson said.