Electoral Commission hoses down talk of Fraser Anning informal vote conspiracy

We haven’t heard a peep from Fraser Anning after he was booted at the election, but his supporters have a wild theory about why he lost.

Not all Australians are rejoicing over the failure of controversial Queensland senator Fraser Anning to retain his seat at the weekend’s election.

His supporters are not only disappointed — some are floating bizarre conspiracy theories they say explains the result.

Mr Anning, who was roundly condemned after blaming Muslims for the Christchurch massacre in March, was booted from the Senate after Saturday’s result.

But the Australian Electoral Commission has been forced to hose down suggestions of vote tampering.

On Twitter, the AEC responded to a Reddit thread shared by an Anning supporter that purported to show a “vote count volunteer” admitting they were “instructed to count every 9 out of 10 ballots which placed Anning first or second” as “informal” … to “suppress Annings (sic) party)”.

Fraser Anning is out. Picture: Nigel Hallett

An informal vote is a ballot that has not been completed properly.

An Anning supporter asked the AEC if Australians “are being lied to” about the result.

“Are we corrupt?” he wrote.

The AEC’s official Twitter account responded, shutting the story down immediately.

“I can advise you that every count we have conducted and will conduct for this election follows strict processes, is done fairly, is undertaken under supervision and is open to scrutineers,” the AEC wrote.

The account also responded to what it called “a joke” from a Twitter user who wrote on May 5: “I love working at the AEC prepolling centre in Gladstone, Queensland, ripping up prepoll ballots that first preference Fraser Anning.”

@AusElectoralCom Are we being lied to at this election? WHY?
ARE YOU CORRUPT?? @fraser_anning @AusFedPolice @ScottMorrisonMP @9NewsAUS @SkyNewsAust pic.twitter.com/1nVitbUJ1M

— BruceStevens4aBetterAustralia (@AustraliaBruce) May 20, 2019

The AEC’s Twitter account responded: “The AEC has very strict ballot paper security arrangements in place for the 2019 federal election. All polling staff engaged have signed declarations of political neutrality in the conduct of their work.”

Later, they wrote that commentary suggesting a cover-up was not appreciated.

“Commentary like this, while obviously false and designed to be a joke, is not funny and could potentially mislead people who don’t read carefully. Let’s raise the bar.”

Mr Anning has not made a statement following Saturday’s result. The former Senator who attracted only 19 votes in the last election — the second fewest out of 126 Queensland candidates — managed to secure the Senate seat last year when One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts was ruled ineligible on citizenship grounds.

The ABC’s Antony Green announced the result during the national broadcaster’s election coverage.

“Fraser Anning goes back to where he came from,” Green said.

The 69-year-old’s time in the Senate was littered with controversies. He said immediately after 50 Muslims were murdered during Friday prayers in two New Zealand mosques that the “real cause of bloodshed … is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place”.

He used his maiden speech in the upper house to call for a return to a “European Christian” immigration system and was roundly condemned for invoking the term “final solution” when addressing a perceived “immigration problem”.

More recently, he shared an image of a grieving family whose 19-month-old daughter went missing alongside the words “If you want a Muslim for a neighbour, just vote Labor.”

Originally published as Electoral Commission hoses down talk of Fraser Anning informal vote conspiracy