Political parties' postal vote abuse in firing line

VOTERS known to be hostile to a political party have had their applications for postal votes delayed or destroyed by campaign workers.

VOTERS known to be hostile to a political party have had their applications for postal votes delayed -- and in some cases destroyed -- by campaign workers.

The practices are extreme examples of the abuse by Labor and the Coalition of the exemption from the Privacy Act enjoyed by political parties, which allows them to build databases that would otherwise be illegal.

The Australian has been told of cases in which voters requesting postal voting applications through political parties -- and who have been identified on the relevant database as holding views not in line with the party -- have had their applications deliberately delayed or even destroyed.

"I have seen other campaign workers do it when they find out someone is a supporter of the other major party, but I don't think it happens much," one campaign worker said. "How would you know?"

It is understood that, although the illegal destruction of postal vote applications is likely to be rare and is not encouraged by the parties, delaying the dispatch of ballots to voters identified as supporting the other party is more common.

Concerns about invasions of privacy and the judgment of those responsible are likely to be stoked by the fact that party processing of postal votes is usually done by volunteers or members of party youth wings.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission, in last year's election more than 30,000 postal vote applications administered by the major parties were delayed by more than 10 days.

"It gives us time to bombard those voters with party information in the hope of winning them over before they vote," one senior party source said.

"And if the delay stops them getting their act together to vote in time, oh well."

Under postal voting rules, MPs and candidates can send electors applications for voting cards. When these are returned, the political party in question forwards the applications to the AEC. Only then does the AEC send out the ballot papers, which voters return directly to the commission.

The applications are sometimes sent out with party propaganda, but sometimes not, giving a neutral appearance.

The report on the 2010 election by the joint standing committee on electoral matters was handed to the government this month. The Labor-Greens majority report calls for the system to be changed in line with AEC recommendations that postal applications be returned to the commission, not to the parties.

However, the recommendation is conditional on parties being sent the voters' names, addresses, dates of birth and electorates, enabling voter tracking in Labor's Electrac and the Coalition's Feedback databases.

This reform, if adopted, would more than triple the number of voters each major party would be able to identify as postal voters because it would give each party access to postal vote returns currently sent to the other major party or directly to the AEC.

The Coalition members of the inquiry opposed this recommendation, preferring to maintain the current situation, despite the AEC's concerns.

A spokeswoman for Special Minister of State Gary Gray said the government was considering the inquiry's recommendations and planned "to respond as soon as possible".

More than 550,000 voters out of the more than 820,000 who registered postal votes at the last federal election did so by returning their application to one of the major political parties.