MARK ALDRIDGE
Political & civils rights advocate, animal lover & state co-ordinator for the Australian Federation Party
UNDER ELECTORAL LAW “A GENERAL ELECTION CAN NOT BE INVALIDATED REGARDLESS OF THE CONDUCT”
Issues like this open the door to electoral fraud, because any government that takes power is there for years and there is not a thing we can do, even if they gain your vote through deceit, fraud or simply steal it.
The up and coming 2013 federal election, will be the most dodgy election seen in this country, and in fact in any democratic nation, and the Adelaide media wont say a word!
Each year in Australia our election process is eroded, the electoral act is re-written to empower the 2 major parties, and ensure they face "less opposition", on top of conduct issues that are nothing more than legalised fraud, they open the loop hole and jump through it.
VIDEO LINK OF MY SPEECH IN CANBERRA ON THIS TOPIC IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT SAYS THIS - SECT 41 Right of electors of States
No adult person who has or acquires a right to vote at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of a State shall, while the right continues, be prevented by any law of the Commonwealth from voting at elections for either House of the Parliament of the Commonwealth.
Electors are people who have a right to vote at elections, yet the word “elector” as of 2/2013 has been removed from around 100 sections of the Federal electoral Act, and replaced in the most with the word “person”, a person does not necessarily have a right to vote, so why the change, and more so why the silence?
The Act now says “A person may apply for a postal ballot paper, not an elector”, as if ballot papers can now be sent out without the need to determine if a “person” is registered to vote.
The game is on and we the people are not invited to play, the new feel of the electoral Act is one of winning at any expense by the major party's because they both backed the new amendments, so here is a taste of what they have in store for we the people they are supposedly representing, you might want to grab a tissue if you still retain and patriotism if even an inkling of respect to our constitution.
Many will not have noticed the electoral changes also are backed by changes to the taxation Act and several others, and there is good reason they do not want you to know, because the most massive attack on our founding documents and our rights and liberty's is about to take place, and it is best you do not know.
Parliament has recently passed legislation to allow the Australian Electoral Commission to directly enrol voters (on the basis of information obtained from reputable sources such as a state’s Road Traffic Authority, the Taxation department and elsewhere) and there is no safe guards to ensure those enrolled even know, and the reason the Act now says "persons" not "electors", is because the new enrolments may not meet the requirements of an elector?
Changes to our whole democratic system should be in line with the protections found in our constitution, and conversant with our common law rights, and I do not believe any of the new changes are!
"Recent amendments to the Electoral Act allow the Electoral Commissioner to directly update or transfer a person’s enrolment, or enrol an unenrolled person, without claim or notice from or to the person (sections 103A and 103B of the Electoral Act)"....(Persons not electors)
The amount of "persons" to be added to the electoral rolls could exceed 1.5 million, with a large percentage of people being unable to meet the usual requirements of becoming an elector, because since the constitution was written, we have had safe guards, like the need to be an Australian citizen to be an elector.
If a person decides they do not want to vote, or do not wish to enrol adding them with out their knowledge will not ensure an educated outcome, or is that the very reason for these changes?
Amending relevant legislation governing the protection of personal data collected by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which would prevent the ATO from providing enrolment relevant data to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), to allow such data to be shared with the AEC for the purposes of facilitating enrolment, also allows said information access where it once was protected, but that is another story.
There are many other changes that will also allow the commissioner to invalidate votes, and several other serious matters, which I will cover in a further update, so why the decision to enrol with out their knowledge so many people living in Australia?
That is where the new postal voting system will come into play, but again, I still have some investigations pending, the fact is, nothing is done with out a reason, and if past conduct is anything to go by, we indeed should be worried.
In the state election in 2010 in South Australia, not only did 77,000 names going missing of the rolls, and near 30% of the Ramsay bi-election simply disappear from the count, over 22,000 postal ballot papers went missing or were deemed invalid, making matters worse 100’s of thousands of postal ballot applications were handled by the 2 major parties.
Although while I was in the courts, this was all denied, until the electoral commissioner was forced to admit the truth by way of an affidavit, it is interesting another change seen though out the yet to be released federal electoral act, is the removal of the word DRO, district returning officers, the very ones that alerted me to many interesting breaches of the electoral Act during the final count of the SA election results, so they are now all gone.
Another of the many changes to the act, include the doubling of the costs of nomination and the doubling of the endorsements needed by independent candidates and Minor parties, making ones candidacy harder and more expensive to achieve.
The direct result will be less choice, and more votes to those who endorse these new laws, again disregarding the peoples rights.
We also see changes to the publicity and validity of "changes", where once the commission was obliged by the Act to publish certain materials in a local paper, or at the very least in the government gazette, now a simple inclusion somewhere on their website has now become adequate.
Ease of de-registering political parties has also been addressed, but as expected there are no disadvantages to the two party’s position, and not a hint of improved rights for the voting public.
We see no changes to address political party’s misrepresenting their position, or dressing up as other political parties, we see no changes to the unfair preferential system, or to ensure we have adequate information or even adequate ballot papers.
Dodgy how to vote cards are not addressed neither are identity checks nor even security measures beyond the use of a pencil and rubber.
Major party’s handling 100's of thousands of postal voting applications is still acceptable practice, even though the JSCEM (Joint standing committee on electoral matters) recommended the complete opposite, in fact most of the changes recommended by the JSCEM to empower voters over the past 20 years are not adopted, in favour of changes to ensure the 2 party system takes a stronger hold on determining the outcome.
Lack of information to ensure voters can cast an informed vote has increased rather than remedied. More people will miss out on their vote and the electoral commissioner can now reject a ballot paper even easier.
Rather than increasing identity checks, we see less transparency, our electoral rolls will now become more inaccurate rather than ensuring they are competent instruments designed to protect the integrity of our election process.
Over recent years our elderly and disabled have endured a decline in support services, and the JSCEM recommendations to offer more support were also dismissed,one must wonder why we dare let those with the most to gain from structural biases continue to write electoral law.
Pre-poll voting used to demand those casting their vote signed documents to prove who they are, and that they had a right to vote, now even this protection has been taken away again undermining the integrity of the electoral system.
Over 3.1 million Australians are either not enrolled, refuse to attend, or simply have no idea how to cast an informed vote, and the new ideals preferred by the major political parties are all about ensuring they maintain power, rather than inspiring Australians to embrace our once fine democratic system.
I will continue to study all the changes made this week (28/2/13) and list them here by amendment, but lest to say, after 100 years of the word “Elector” and the constitution using the word “Elector”a complete change to the use of the word "person" is not to empower an equitable electoral outcome.
One would have hoped over 140 changes to the federal electoral Act just prior to a federal election, would be news worthy, but in my years of exposing corruption in the system, it never has been.
The new changes empower the 2 major parties, they do not help inspire participation in our democratic system, they are biased deliberately in favour of those who write the law.
Our supposed independent review process "the board of the JSCEM" is adorned by major party members, and even when they recommend changes that reflect the will of the Australian people, even those recommendations are tossed aside by people who we employ to protect our best interests, here lays the whole problem.
Not only must we change the system, ensure it is Independent of political interference and self interest, we must ensure it allows both educated and freedom of choice, with over 370,000 ballot papers invalidated simply because voters did not have the right information to even cast a valid vote, (votes that were a deliberate attempt to be cast as valid) we can rule our democratic system "Broken" and there for the outcomes of the process are no longer just.
Today Tonight Adelaide Story of Alleged Election Faults and Fraud
Today Tonight Adelaide story of Labor's use of fraudulent Family First how-to-vote cards, as well as Mark Aldridge's intention to take errors by the Electoral Commission, which allegedly denied people...
Mark Aldridge Independent Candidate
Mark Aldridge speaks on Democracy Canberra 2013
Mark Aldridge part of just grounds speaking at the Rotten to the core rally 12/3/2013