Rudds’s promo posters at his after party were cheerfully souvenired — not by party faithful but members of the media pack.
Hi guys, my wife and I voted at Nelson Bay in the electorate of Paterson. We got our two voting papers and it wasn’t till later in the day that I realized our papers had not been initialed. I was talking to a friend at tennis today and he said his papers had not been initialed either. There was a count of over 2500 informal votes in this electorate, would a lack of initials on a paper render it informal?
Canberra public service departments were a hive of activity Sunday… yes Sunday as public servants scramble to destroy cabinet documents and make last minute adjustments to briefs for the incoming Rudd Labor Government. You have to ask yourself where loyalties really lie when it comes down to it. Secretaries of department and agencies will be repositioning themselves, all previous loyalties are thrown out as the top brass pledge their allegience to the newly crown Prime Minister Rudd in the hope of picking up a Secretarial, CEO, or Commissioner position. Hopefully the Rudd Labor Government have been keeping track of who has been naughty and who has been nice over the past eleven years and put a broom (or D9 Dozer) through the Commonwealth Public Sector.
On Sunday Departmental Secretaries and their Executive team held talks and scrambled to position themselves strategically under a new Rudd Labor Government. Across Canberra public service carparks normally vacant over a weekend were full of staff ditching any remnants of the old regime. On asking one security officer about all the activity, he said “They are shredding cabinet documents so they don’t get in the hands of the opposition…Oh I mean the new government.” “They have been here since daybreak” he said. Taking a drive around town, the normally dormant public sector precinct and ‘on the hill’ were just as busy as a weekday. You would have to ask, can Mr Rudd trust or even rely on the former Senior Execuitve that served over a decade under a Howard coalition. The incompentence of many departments gave Labor such an arsenal of ammunition to bring down the Howard Government. The incompetence will not change just because of a change in Government. An interesting three years ahead I would think.
Some enterprising grade 5 kids were seen at the Bronte School polling booth (in Wenworth) handing out how to vote cards for the “No More Homework Party”. Many voters were taking them enthusiastically!! If their candidate hadn’t quit his job as a prefect before he nominated, that might be yet another reason for a by-election should he win!
Possible voter fraud. There is reason to believe widespread voter fraud is possible under the existing Australian electoral system. Some registered voters may be voting at multiple polling booths in their electorate, and/or using names of people who are deceased, housebound, overseas, or otherwise unable to attend a polling station. There is neither roll cross referencing, nor identity verification, effectively making the Australian electoral system one of the most potentially fraudulent in the world. This is an extremely serious matter requiring urgent attention.
FYI: John’s side burns are seriously lop sided in his concession speech. RHS long, LHS short – look at his glasses to compare… Was Janette not concentrating?
Another area ripe for fraud is jury trials where ID is not asked for at the beginning of the trial. You front up when “your” name is called, take your place in the jury box and they never check or ask for ID!!! You could be anybody!
Re voter fraud: I’ve wondered about this for years. What’s to stop a person going to numerous polling booths and casting a vote under someone else’s name? It would be so simple and untraceable. It beggars belief that ID isn’t required before voting.
Did you also notice that the pre-poll postal vote forms distributed by the parites have to be returned to the party NOT the AEC.
For the great uninformed out there take note that the Australian Electoral Commission do stringent tests on the rolls post each election. No seat has had enough multiple voters to challenge the result of any election. Our system is robust.
Re voter fraud: I’ve wondered about this for years. What’s to stop a person going to numerous polling booths and casting a vote under someone else’s name? It would be so simple and untraceable. It beggars belief that ID isn’t required before voting.