Inquiry into the future of Victoria’s electoral administration Report to Parliament Electoral Matters Committee March 2014 ORDERED TO BE PRINTED Victorian Government Printer 2014 Parliamentary Paper No. 307, Session 2010-2014 Parliament of Victoria Electoral Matters Committee Inquiry into the future of Victoria’s electoral administration ISBN – 978-0-9872925-5-1 Cover Design by Mono Design Table of Contents Committee Members ......................................................................................... viii Staff ..................................................................................................................... viii The Electoral Matters Committee ....................................................................... ix Terms of Reference .............................................................................................. x Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... xi Recommendations and findings ....................................................................... xii Chair’s Foreword ............................................................................................... xiv Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................... 1 Terms of reference ............................................................................................... 1 Local government electoral review ......................................................................... 1 Responsibilities of the Committee ...................................................................... 1 Relationship with the Victorian Electoral Commission ............................................ 2 Context to the inquiry ........................................................................................... 3 Calls for a review of Victoria’s electoral administration ........................................... 3 Changes to Australian electoral legislation– 2012-2014 ......................................... 4 Commonwealth .............................................................................................. 4 South Australia ............................................................................................... 5 Victoria ........................................................................................................... 6 Electoral events in Victoria ..................................................................................... 6 Melbourne District by-election ........................................................................ 7 Lyndhurst District by-election ......................................................................... 7 Redivision of Victorian state electoral boundaries .......................................... 7 Inquiry process ..................................................................................................... 8 Preliminary research ............................................................................................... 8 Parliamentary Library ..................................................................................... 8 Call for submissions, discussion paper and stakeholder liaison ............................. 9 Submissions ........................................................................................................... 9 Public hearings ..................................................................................................... 10 Background briefings ............................................................................................ 10 Electoral Regulation and Research Network ................................................ 10 Site visits – Australia ............................................................................................. 11 International study tour – United States of America, 2013 .................................... 11 Data analysis ........................................................................................................ 11 Role of Australia’s electoral matters committees .......................................... 12 Report outline ..................................................................................................... 12 Chapter Two: Early voting at Victorian elections ......................... 15 Definition of early voting .................................................................................... 15 Different forms of early voting ............................................................................... 16 Postal voting ................................................................................................. 16 iii Inquiry into the future of Victoria’s electoral administration Committee’s view about postal voting 17 Early voting in person ................................................................................... 18 Matters held over from the Committee’s 2010 Victorian state election inquiry 19 Legislative provisions for voting early in Victoria ........................................... 19 Postal voting ......................................................................................................... 19 Early voting ........................................................................................................... 19 Brief history of early voting in person at Australian elections ....................... 20 Similarities in the development of early voting, Australia and the US .................. 21 Trends in rates of early voting in person at Victorian, federal and Australian state elections ..................................................................................................... 22 Victorian elections ................................................................................................. 22 Federal elections ................................................................................................... 23 Other Australian state elections ............................................................................ 24 Evidence addressing the growth in early voting in person ............................ 25 Reasons for the growing popularity of early voting in person ................................ 26 Normative views about early voting in person ....................................................... 27 Length of the early voting period ........................................................................... 28 Campaigning ......................................................................................................... 29 Electoral administration ......................................................................................... 30 Committee’s findings ......................................................................................... 31 Chapter Three: Legislative methods to reduce informal voting at Victorian Legislative Assembly elections ...................................... 35 Definition of informal voting .............................................................................. 35 Recent trends in informal voting ....................................................................... 36 Victoria .................................................................................................................. 36 Victorian state by-elections ........................................................................... 38 Reasons for increased informal voting at Victorian by-elections .................. 38 The VEC’s informal voting surveys ............................................................... 39 Federal elections ................................................................................................... 40 Australian state elections ...................................................................................... 41 NSW ............................................................................................................. 41 Queensland .................................................................................................. 42 South Australia ............................................................................................. 42 Western Australia ......................................................................................... 43 Tasmania ...................................................................................................... 44 Australian Capital Territory ........................................................................... 44 Northern Territory ......................................................................................... 45 The Committee’s previous work on informal voting ........................................ 45 Legislative methods to reduce informal voting at Victorian Legislative Assembly elections ............................................................................................ 46 Correct procedure for marking the Victorian ballot paper ...................................... 46 iv Table of Contents Legislative methods to reduce informal voting in the Victorian Legislative Assembly elections ............................................................................................................... 47 Optional preferential voting .......................................................................... 47 Full OPV 47 Modified OPV 48 South Australian ticket voting / savings provision ......................................... 49 Recent proposals for reform of the South Australian Legislative Council’s voting system 51 Recent