Page 1217 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 April 1994
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Since 1949 Tasmanians have been quite capable of casting their votes, despite the fact that on polling day it is illegal to do a number of things, such as, first, to distribute any electoral matter, including advertisements, how-to-vote cards, handbills, pamphlets, posters or notices; secondly, to canvass for votes or solicit for votes within 100 metres of a polling booth; and, thirdly, to publish or cause to be published in any newspaper any election advertisement. Why should it be different in the ACT?
I believe, Madam Speaker, that the use of how-to-vote cards in an electoral system with Robson rotation defies logic. Can we expect each party to distribute a how-to-vote card for each possible permutation of positions on the ballot-paper, or would we perhaps see a card with such complex instructions that tuning a video would seem easy in comparison? If we have such complex cards, what might that do to the queues at polling booths on election day? It is clear that there is no form of how-to-vote card that will expressly assist voters on election day. I believe that Canberrans do not want to be buried under mountains of paper on election day; nor do they need to take an IQ test to decide whom to vote for. People will make up their minds, just as they currently do in Tasmania, before exercising their suffrage. Having done this, the last thing any voter wants, or will want, is to be harassed by party workers outside their polling place. Many voters find it offensive to be harassed in this way as they arrive to perform their compulsory civic duty.
There is another matter which complicates the issue even further, and this stems from the prohibition on the publication of candidates' names without their consent. This means that, in order to produce a how-to-vote card, the consent of each candidate named on it will be needed. While this may be fine for major parties running as many candidates as there are seats, or more, it would create great difficulty for Independent candidates, for parties wishing to give voters a range of secondary choices, and even for factions of major parties seeking to get their preferred groupings up. Policing this requirement on polling day would be difficult, if not impossible. The last thing the Assembly or the ACT needs is to have the results of the election disputed due to infringing how-to-vote cards being distributed on polling day.
While the issue of how-to-vote cards was not explicitly addressed in the referendum by not being mentioned in the Electoral Commission's referendum booklet, the electorate, I believe, has an expectation that, as far as possible, the Tasmanian Hare-Clark model will be implemented in the ACT. Distribution of how-to-vote cards at polling places is not part of that model. Richard Farmer said this in his column in the Canberra Times on 17 December 1993:
The rotation of party candidates on the ballot paper so that how-to-vote cards become impossible in those multi-member electorates therefore has my support. No one faction of either of the major parties can completely stack the endorsement process, so people have a real choice instead of a pretend choice.
The Canberra Times editorial of the same date stated:
Party machines, of course, do not trust the people to pick people in the right order.
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