Running the Gauntlet at the AEC …

Party supporters and placards appeared to be allowed inside the building where citizens are coming to cast pre-poll votes. Our pre-polling voters run the gauntlet …

It began a few weeks ago when I volunteered to turn up and offer how-to-vote cards for the Party of my choice (Greens) outside the Australian Electoral Office’s pre-polling premises in Cameron St, Launceston.

I couldn’t believe my eyes! Andrew Nikolic’s supporters were inside the building, in party apparel, with poster-boards, how-to-vote cards, etc. They were grouped either side of an internal door through which the hapless voters then had to pass in order to get their ballot papers and make their vote.

There was no way to avoid them, voters had to pass within ‘excuse-me, can I get through’ touching distance of them. As time went by, other-party supporters joined them.

I chose to stay outside, on Cameron St, to hand out those how-to-vote cards to those who have been coming in early to vote. I was so surprised and dismayed to see that AEC officers have been allowing party supporters to position themselves inside the building, and there they have been standing … in the foyer, with their big posters, and their how-to-vote cards, as if the parties have some sort of deal with the Australian Electoral Commission.

Those would-be voters coming in from the street have to run the gauntlet of these die-hards. On my first day there, it was only some minutes before one voter came back out onto the street and told me how angry he was with having to run the gauntlet inside the building.

Yes, that was the expression he used: ‘running the gauntlet’. Over the next weeks I heard the same comment from a number of people – some are quite angry at being approached by party supporters within the confines of the building which is the nominated place for pre-polling.

I am aghast that this can be permitted. My understanding of the law was that we had to be out in the street, now I hear some 6 metres being mentioned, and I don’t know what that means, but I cannot accept that political advertising should be permitted within the polling booth area. We cannot allow this intrusion into the one area where we should be free from fear or persuasion to cast our vote.

So while being there to hand out Greens material, I have remained out in the street, and rather than ‘intercept’ the poor would-be voter, I have tried instead to stand out of the way of these people, and to hold my how-to-vote ticket so that it isn’t thrust in their face as they try to get in from the street – inside which premises there are more party supporters waiting to pounce on them.

So I went to the main AEC office elsewhere in Lonnie, and expressed my concern to the appropriate person. He understood my concern, while deflecting its point. He undertook to get in touch with the responsible officer at the pre-polling booth, and did so. But the result was just that Party persons indoors! were asked ‘not to block the path’ of the would-be voters as they progressed from the foyer into the ‘inner sanctum’.

I’m just a volunteer. I don’t speak for the party that I’m going to vote for and I’ve had no discussion with anyone about this comment, except for a person unknown to me that I met while on my way home today.

We all of us must (‘in my opinion’) demand the integrity of the electoral process … and we have to be accorded that.

If we allow the political machine to intrude into the electoral process, to intrude into the very electoral premises, then we risk further corruption of our electoral process.

*Garry Stannus is an occasional contributor and regular commenter to Tasmanian Times. His interests include environmental matters, politics and other miscellanea. He’s a youthful 65, lives and works in the North (Liffey and Lonnie) drives an old grey ute and rides a bike to get from A to B when he’s in town.