No blanks allowed: Teal candidates plot legal challenge over how-to-vote cards

Two teal candidates are preparing to mount a legal challenge against the Victorian Electoral Commission over how-to-vote cards, with one willing to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

The commission on Friday told Melissa Lowe, a candidate in the ultra-marginal seat of Hawthorn, and Kew candidate Sophie Torney that their plans to print how-to-vote cards with a “1” beside their names only and leave the rest of the boxes unnumbered would break electoral rules.

The proposed how-to-vote card from Melissa Lowe.

It is in stark contrast to the federal election, where the Australian Electoral Commission allowed independents – including Monique Ryan, whose federal seat of Kooyong entirely covers the state seat of Hawthorn – to release how-to-vote cards in this format.

“It would seem the Victorian Electoral Commission holds that voters are less capable than the Australian Electoral Commission does,” Lowe said on Saturday. “No candidate should bear the burden of voter education on behalf of the Victorian Electoral Commission.”

Torney said: “Should the VEC reject the registration of our how-to-vote card, we will immediately challenge the decision with [the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal]. In the event of an adverse decision, we will take an appeal to the Supreme Court of Victoria.”

The VEC gave The Age a statement on Friday saying that it would not allow Lowe or other independent candidates to use how-to-vote cards in this format.

“How-to-vote cards must not include any visuals of blank boxes next to candidate names,” a VEC spokeswoman said.

“The reason for this is that it may induce a voter to vote 1 for the candidate, but not number all the remaining boxes. This would mislead the voter to cast an informal vote.”

Monique Ryan’s how-to-vote card for May’s federal election.

Another teal candidate, Frankston Hospital doctor Kate Lardner, who is standing in Mornington, and former longtime Liberal member Felicity Frederico, who is running as an independent in Brighton, are weighing up what action to take over their how-to-vote cards.

“It’s almost like we’re not giving any credit to the voters,” Frederico said. “Voters aren’t idiots”

At the federal election in May, where both Ryan and Zoe Daniel in the bayside seat of Goldstein numbered their how-to-vote cards with only a “1” and then blank boxes, the informal vote went down marginally in Kooyong, but rose 1.22 per cent in Goldstein.

“While we appreciate that how-to-vote cards produced by Monique Ryan didn’t appear to increase informality in Kooyong in the recent federal election,” the VEC spokeswoman said, “there are plenty of districts in Victoria with high numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse communities and people with low literacy, and it is important they do not receive confusing instructions about filling out a ballot paper that could lead to informality.”

Zoe Daniel’s how to vote card for May’s federal election.Credit: Zoe Daniel

All of the independents backed by Climate 200 are planning on running the how-to-vote cards with a “1” next to their name and then unnumbered boxes for the rest of the ballot. These candidates are: Lowe in Hawthorn, Torney in Kew, Nomi Kaltmann in Caulfield and Kate Lardner in Mornington.

These “teal” candidates all say that they do not wish to do preference deals and want voters to decide for themselves how to vote.

“I believe people should vote in line with their own values, not in line with backroom party deals on preferences,” Lowe said.

Told of a potential legal challenge by the candidates on Friday, the VEC spokeswoman noted that the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal supported the commission’s position in 2018 when independent MP for Shepparton, Suzanna Sheed, unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the rejection of her how-to-vote card due to blank boxes.

“Having blank boxes on a how-to-vote card may be considered misleading,” she said.

Early voting for all Victorian seats opens at 9am on Monday.

Hawthorn is one of Victoria’s most marginal seats, and has become a fascinating three-way battle between Labor incumbent John Kennedy, the Liberal Party and Lowe. Kennedy won the seat by just 330 votes from the Liberal Party’s John Pesutto in 2018, becoming the first Labor MP for Hawthorn in 63 years.

Pesutto is standing again in a bid to win back the seat from Kennedy. Labor is considered an outside chance to retain the seat, with pundits seeing the contest as between Pesutto and Lowe.

This story is part of our in-depth local coverage of the key seats of Melton, Hawthorn and Richmond at the November state election.

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