Australians overwhelmingly want to keep political parties out of the postal voting process, according to new polling conducted for The Australia Institute.
Currently, political parties are allowed to send postal vote application forms bundled with information about a candidate. The forms are then returned to the political party, which forwards them to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).
The new poll, conducted by YouGov, has found that a vast majority of Australians would rather voters send their voting paper directly to the AEC.
Key findings include three in four Australians (75%) support requiring postal vote applications to be sent directly to the AEC. Only 6% oppose or strongly oppose the change.
The multi-party Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has recommended banning postal vote forms from being bundled with other material and requiring that forms go straight to the AEC, not routed through a political party’s headquarters.
Instead of directing would-be postal voters to their own party websites, both the major parties have registered websites with generic names to handle these online requests.
In 2022 the Liberal Party set up a site with the postal.vote web address and Labor bought the howtovote.org.au domain. When voters registered for a postal vote through these sites, the parties are able to use contact and other information for their own campaign purposes.
“Political parties have inserted themselves into the postal voting process, circulating materials that appear official but actually harvest the person’s information for the party,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program.
“Australia has one of the best electoral systems in the world, but it depends on trust in the integrity of the electoral process. When voters receive seemingly official postal vote forms bundled with party-political material, it risks confusion and distrust.
“Political parties’ involvement in the postal vote process is the number one source of complaints during election campaigns, according to the Australian Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission has warned Australians to ‘think twice’ before filling in these forms.
“The Parliament should follow the recommendations of the multi-party Electoral Matters Committee and remove political party involvement in the postal vote process.”
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