NSW election officials are being harassed, followed and nonconsensually filmed while moving pre-poll ballots by conspiracy theorists who are baselessly accusing them of committing election fraud.
Videos of NSW Election Commission (NSWEC) workers moving boxes of ballot papers are circulating among online conspiracy groups and are being promoted by some of their more prominent figures.
These videos appear to show workers following typical procedure and transporting sealed boxes of filled-out pre-poll ballot votes.
“It is usual practice for full ballot boxes to be moved during the early voting period to the election manager’s office, for secure storage when an early voting centre has taken a large amount of votes,” the NSWEC’s website says. It also includes a list of processes to ensure the integrity of votes during the process.
Despite this, these videos are being used to make unsupported claims that election workers are somehow committing election fraud.
Former Liberal MP turned United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly took issue with a “bloke in shorts and a T-shirt” using his personal vehicle to transport votes.
Similarly, Family First candidate Lyle Shelton tweeted that he was “concerned” about the ballot transport process before he was informed by the NSWEC Twitter account that this was normal procedure.
Other videos being shared on Telegram show people confronting NSWEC workers, calling them “crooks”, telling them that they “can’t take them” and telling them that what they’re doing is “illegal”. Multiple videos capture the worker’s faces and car numberplates even after workers ask them to stop filming.
One Telegram group, which Crikey has chosen not to name to avoid amplifying its claims further, has collated and published more than 10 videos and photos of different NSWEC workers carrying boxes.
An NSWEC spokesperson rejected election fraud claims and reiterated that the videos showed workers following the correct procedure.
“This is permitted and there are processes in place to ensure there is a robust audit trail of ballot box movements,” they told Crikey.
Election fraud is a common type of election misinformation spread by conspiracy groups in the lead-up to and after elections (like claims made by United Australia Party’s Clive Palmer after the 2022 federal election) but is rarely substantiated.
Some American memes work better in Oz than others. Now I suppose it is *possible* that the NSW Electoral Commission has been corrupted, but, you know, it’s pretty unlikely. Every election there’s a big bunch of people who sign up to person the booths and count the votes. Most of them have done it before, and, if my personal experience is anything to go by, they all seem to take the whole thing pretty seriously. My point is that if someone was trying to fiddle the votes, it is hard to imagine every single one of those thousands of electoral workers keeping quiet about it.
Now in the US, the electoral system is famously corrupt. From gerrymandering to illegally purging the rolls to voter suppression, to outright terrorism directed at inconvenient districts – what do you think was the original objective of the KKK but to use every possible method to prevent their former slaves from voting?
These voices trying to undermine public confidence in the Australian electoral process are channeling American political practice. They might as well be talking Esperanto.
Oh there’s people in Maitland who don’t think non-White people should be allowed to vote and there’s a handful that absolutely will resort to violence. I hope the Police ensure the safety of these workers and their vehicles.
Also, every count has scrutineers from any party involved in the election, so I’d like to see anyone try and change votes from one side to the other, under those circumstances.
The scrutineers are a great safety protocol so far as the votes cast in the booths on election day is concerned.
However, it depends on paper voting slips to be transparent.
Of more concern are those who, in various ways, follow the “vote early and vote often” model.
Seriously? With compulsory voting, how is it possible to vote more than once and be undetected?
Use someone else’s name ?
Then what happens when that person turns up to vote?
Well that probably depends a bit on whether or not they’re still alive.
Someone using another name outside of that name’s electorate obviously won’t be detected until after the election.
To be clear, I don’t think voter fraud is a problem worth worrying about, but it does happen.
I don’t know how names get deleted from the roll when someone dies, but there must be a system. Yes, if you knew someone had died very recently, you could try voting in their name, but I can’t see it ever influencing a result.
There’d be a bit of a flurry and calls for the person to provide irrefutable proof of identity, I guess.
You had to provide Photo ID at the last few elections so this seems unlikely!
Each party provides a scrutineer, don’t they? Would be pretty hard to fiddle the votes, you’d think.
I’ve worked at a couple of elections (state and federal) in polling stations. It’s an extremely long day. 7am to 9pm or longer, take your own food. You have to do online training and read a lot of material simply for the basic position. Even more involved if you’re going to work other positions. 6pm comes along,the scrutineers arrive, the doors are locked and the workers start counting. We’re on a timeline so I honestly don’t know how votes are meant to be changed, especially when most of us have only met each other that day and there’s party scrutineers watching.
There’s nothing stopping people marking their votes, when they vote, with a pen, and many do. Pencils are only used because they don’t run out of ink and they don’t dry out between elections. I think before these people start throwing around false accusations, perhaps they should work at a polling booth first. Then again I suspect they wouldn’t pass the online training.
I do hope someone has collected all this video and audio evidence. It’s almost like they were recording exactly the sort of evidence that could be used against them in a court of law should a polling officer suffer anything detrimental from this stuff.
And sorry, but Amanda Vanstone is currently on the radio, and she’s sounding very joyous because she claims “you heard it hear first” that all this Woke stuff is about to implode. All to do with some survey she read or some such. I bet the NSW Liberal party wished it had imploded a month ago.
Somehow, I don’t think treating people with decency and respect, regardless of their race, gender, sex, colour, disability or even income, will ever go out of fashion.
Kelly’s right. We need to ban people in shorts, even if they self-identify as blokes.
Can we ban people suffering from TDS at the same time?………………..
(Trump Delusion Syndrome for the non-medically minded)
TDS sufferers and their followers in the US have destroyed that country’s standing in the eyes of the world. That won’t happen here but it can damage the standing of other right wing parties.
More from the Irrelevance Army. Expect Sky After Dark to jump on board of the Libs don’t win.
Thanks, MAGA.
Thanks a lot.
Even after the election, people who I thought were quite rational, were showing the videos and talking about election fraud on Sunday. These kind of things do make a mark on people who are gullible.