[LINK] postal vote oddity

[Jan Whitaker]

At 10:42 AM 19/10/2007, Karl Auer wrote:
>I contacted the AEC, who said that this was all legal, that the parties
>would forward the applications to the AEC, and that postal vote papers
>would be sent direct from the AEC.
>
>We later received a similar letter from Mike Kelly (Lab), but his made
>it quite clear that the Labor Party was involved - the return address
>and the prepaid envelope all mentioned the Labor Party and the
>application form contained all the original bolding of AEC contact
>details. The toll-free contact number provided on the last page was
>identified as "the ALP Postal Vote Office" (though a second occurrence
>of the number on the same page in larger, red letters had no such
>information).
>
>So my question: What do the parties get out of this? Sending the
>application is an excuse for more junk mail, it gets their message into
>the household. But what do they get out of forwarding postal vote
>applications?

We (Privacy Foundation) had this raised recently and are following up 
with the person who raised it. I forwarded your additional 
information to her and the APF Board. Thanks for describing what the 
ALP is doing because it seems to be much more transparent.

What I found astounding, and possibly a conflict of interest, is that 
Nairn is the Special Minister of State with responsibilities FOR the 
AEC! If this is a 'trick' he uses, and he has used it in the past 
(APF complained to Privacy Commissioner and the AEC at the last 
election), it's no wonder the AEC is not taking complaints about 
misleading, although possibly legal, acts like this.

What do they get? An indicator of who in their electorate is applying 
for a postal ballot, that's what. It probably factors into some exit 
polling data they'll be taking on election day.

Jan


Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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