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Report on the Conduct of the 2016 Federal Election and Matters Related Thereto

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Report on the Conduct of the 2016 Federal Election and Matters Related Thereto PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Report on the conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters November 2018 CANBERRA © Commonwealth of Australia ISBN 978-1-74366-741-5 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-74366-742-2 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Contents Chair's Foreword .............................................................................................................................. ix Members .......................................................................................................................................... xiii Terms of Reference ......................................................................................................................... xix Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. xxi List of Recommendations ............................................................................................................ xxiii Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... xxxi The Report 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Conduct of the inquiry ......................................................................................................... 2 Interim reports and Government responses ......................................................... 3 Authorisation of voter communication ..................................................... 3 Foreign donations ......................................................................................... 5 AEC modernisation ...................................................................................... 6 Political donations–discussion paper ........................................................ 7 Cyber-manipulation of elections ............................................................................ 7 2 2016 federal election overview and key issues .................................................. 9 The 2016 federal election ...................................................................................................... 9 A double dissolution ............................................................................................................ 9 Reform for the Senate ......................................................................................................... 12 Count methodology and quotas ........................................................................... 14 iii iv Count and scrutiny of Senate ballot papers ........................................................ 17 Size of Senate ballot papers ................................................................................... 24 Implementation of post-2013 reforms .............................................................................. 28 Workforce planning and management ................................................................ 30 3 Voter enrolment and participation ..................................................................... 35 The Electoral Roll ................................................................................................................ 35 Enrolment ................................................................................................................ 36 Electoral roll accuracy ............................................................................................ 41 Roll divergence ....................................................................................................... 42 Voter turnout ....................................................................................................................... 44 Informality ............................................................................................................... 49 Savings provisions ...................................................................................... 51 Continuing role of compulsory voting ................................................................ 53 Compliance measures and penalties for non-voting ............................. 55 AEC publicity campaigns and electoral education ........................................... 58 Voter identification ............................................................................................................. 61 Indigenous enrolment and voting .................................................................................... 64 Political participation ............................................................................................ 69 4 Voter access ............................................................................................................. 73 Polling places ....................................................................................................................... 73 Queue times ............................................................................................................. 74 Campaigners and party volunteers at polling places ........................................ 76 Access for disabled voters ..................................................................................... 79 Pre-poll voting ..................................................................................................................... 84 Postal voting ........................................................................................................................ 88 Overseas voting ................................................................................................................... 92 Australian Defence Force Personnel .................................................................... 94 Mobile voting ....................................................................................................................... 95 Voting services for blind and low vision voters ............................................................. 97 v 5 Technology in elections...................................................................................... 101 Electronic voting................................................................................................................ 101 Limited electronic voting ..................................................................................... 103 iVote ........................................................................................................................ 104 vVote ....................................................................................................................... 105 Web-loading and e-mail submission .................................................................. 106 Online and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems .................................... 107 Scanning of ballot papers ................................................................................................. 108 ANAO investigation and report of AEC procurement ................................... 108 Scanning House of Representatives ballots ....................................................... 110 Electronic Certified Lists .................................................................................................. 111 ‘ECL Lite’ .............................................................................................................. 113 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 114 6 Political donations ............................................................................................... 117 Taxation treatment ............................................................................................... 118 Past Electoral Matters committee inquiries on political donations ................ 121 2011 report on the funding of political parties and election campaigns121 2012 report relating to Part XX of the Electoral Act ............................. 123 2018 – Advisory report on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017 ............. 123 Government responses ......................................................................................... 124 High Court judgments...................................................................................................... 125 The implied right to freedom of political communication .............................. 126 Unions NSW case .................................................................................................. 127 McCloy case ........................................................................................................... 130 The majority view ..................................................................................... 130 Dissenting opinion ................................................................................... 132 Implications for making laws on regulating political donations in Australia132 Reform proposals put to this inquiry ............................................................................. 134 vi Committee comment .......................................................................................................
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