About those multiple votes....

Mainstream media has been making much of the fact that at the 2013 federal general election 1,979 Australians have admitted to voting more than once. The Guardian went so far as to run with the highly misleading headline: AEC uncovers 19,000 cases of multiple voting in last federal election.

However in relation to the 18,770 ‘recorded’ multiple votes, ongoing processing has so far found that 8,291 of these multiple votes are due to clerical error on the part of electoral commission employees.

Still be processed are another 8,500 electors.

Of the admitted 1,979 multiple voters - 1,602.99 of these are either elderly, have poor literacy skills or do not fully understand the electoral process.

That leaves approximately 377 people of whom 128 may not have a reliable explanation for multiple voting.

Statistically I doubt whether these 128 people would have influenced the election outcome. 

Unless miraculously they were all registered as residing in for example the Fairfax or Indie electorates and cast their votes exclusively in favour of the Liberal and National parties - thus giving the Abbott Government an even bigger majority.

The likes of the  H S Chapman Society might get into a lather about 463 ballots papers out of a total of 13,726,070 ballots cast, but I cannot see such a small number being a good reason to switch the current voting system to either the highly problematic electronic voting or the very hackable online voting systems.

Senate Estimates, Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, 25 February 2014:

Excerpt from evidence given by Tom Rogers, Acting Electoral Commissioner –

As you know, after the election not every multiple mark on a certified list is actually a multiple vote. So we go through a process of filtering those out...

We sent inquiry letters to 18,770 electors who had multiple marks recorded beside their names.

Replies are still being processed after that process. To date, 8,291 multiple marks have been confirmed as being

caused by official error, such as the wrong name being marked off when electors with similar names attend the

booth or even, on paper lists, people pressing too hard so that the pen goes through the sheet.

A total of 1,979 electors have admitted to voting more than once, with the greater majority of those—over 81 per cent—being elderly, with poor literacy, or with low comprehension of the electoral process....

I think you will find that for some of the elderly voters it  will be that they might have received a vote from one of our mobile teams and also a postal vote, for example...

 There are 128 electors who have more than two marks recorded beside their names...

That is 92 [with three marks recorded beside their names]...

22 [with four marks recorded beside their names]...

Four [with five marks recorded beside their names]...

With six marks, there are six electors; seven marks, one elector; nine marks, one elector; 12 marks, one elector; and 15 marks, one elector...

What I can tell you is that we are currently working with the AFP and the DPP about this issue. We take it very seriously....