Gillard denies democracy to thousands of South Aussie voters
In the absence of fixed election dates, the reigning party can play games with democracy and so they did, denying some 77,000 South Aussies the opportunity to enroll, says Mark Aldridge, leader of the “Only Independent senate group”
The March State Election clearly showed many long term voters found themselves no longer on the roll for one reason or another, the early call for the election on a Saturday, left only a few hours on the Monday to enroll, denying many the time or opportunity to be able cast their precious vote in the August federal election.
The Electorate are already voicing their disappointment at this 2 horse race, especially considering either horse may not even finish the race, leaving scrutiny of the local candidates seemingly of the agenda, with the disappointment surrounding the conduct of the state election, still leaving a bad taste in out mouths, we all deserved a hell of a lot more, Mark said.
Like a broken record, we are still looking for leader ship on major issues like water, power and social services, many asking themselves is it even worth voting, and that is not good for the people or the many budding representatives!
“I hope and pray we never again have to endure any of the dirty tricks that took place during the State Election, but the start to this federal campaign is not painting a pretty picture, with the electorate already on the back foot”
My running mate Christopher and I will be watching the postal voting system with concern, considering some 16,500 postal ballots going missing at the state election, not forgetting some 7500 postal applications were found to be dodgy, says Mark
We intend to police this election process by endorsing as many scrutineers as possible, to ensure that democracy stays true to the electorate across the state, we will have the backing of the Alliance Australia, who have just as much interest in ensuring the winning candidates deserve the title of honorable.
I personally also hope this federal election is not going to be discount democracy, and will be demanding the many declared institutions like nursing homes and hospitals that missed out on service during the state election (77 in total), receive the support they need from the AEC, “Democracy is not a place to be penny pinching” says Mark.
I call on the good people of South Australia to contact us if you would like to help us police the election, democracy is the corner stone of any society, and should be fair and transparent, lets hope the Labor party don’t play dress ups again, and if they do, we will be watching.
Mark M Aldridge
Independent Senate Candidate
Spokesperson for the Alliance SA
www.markmaldridge.com
08 82847482 / 0403379500
Didn’t you try and have the SA state election investigated, and wasn’t it thrown out of court for being a baseless waste of time?
Well that depends on your point of view, 16,500 missing postal ballots, 7500 dodgy applications, thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals being denied the usual support services, and another 12 breaches of the legislative protections just to name a few, seems worthy of investigation?
Polling Booths running out of deceleration ballots, and long term voters finding they had been removed from the roll are also a major concern, and you may know already that the Labor party dressed up as another party and handed out dodgy how to vote cards, they even registered the reply paid postal address under the opposition leaders name, so as to dupe voters, but hey if this is your idea of democracy, you are welcome to your views.
The case was tossed out on an argument that the common law of elections no longer applied in SA, and they were wrong and have admitted it, so it was a strong case, mind you I am far from being a lawyer, more so some one who cares about democracy, it nearly, and may have cost me my house.
Interestingly the chief Justice has emailed me with an out of court settlement, work that one out?
PS’ Labor won by around 1200 votes…hhmmmm
Last I heard, “Chief Justice John Doyle … found the petition was defective because it was vague and contained “a lot of irrelevant material” in its 277 pages.”
Also, I’m pretty sure the Chief Justice doesn’t email people offering settlements. For one if there was any settlement, it would be from a representative of the Crown, or maybe the Electoral Commission. It would also be very doubtful to come through the Chief Justice, since I’m pretty sure he has more important things to do than be a messenger.
Aaaand, Labor won the electorate of Ashford by more than 2000 votes, so I’m uncertain how you’re figuring the 1200.
Many seats were won by a hand full of votes, so 1200 in a few seats would have swayed the result, emailed statements and those sent to me on statutory decelerations were deemed invalid, all the evidence in particular by way of affidavits of the commissioner were only able to be used at trial, yet the original petition which has to be filed with in 40 days, only had around 1600 electors statements not enough to invalidate an election, long story, but what are you arguing here? the figures above are from the commissioners affidavit, so more votes went missing than any patriotic person would find acceptable, and I put my all in to fight for the many who were denied their vote, do you think what I tried to achieve was wrong?
It has nothing to do with the outcome, but everything to do with democracy, the offer has come by way of the Court Registry at the request of the Chief Justice, if you dont think the conduct was un becoming to a fair election, what can I say, ask the hundreds of people that emailed me their complaints, as a candidate I tried my best to represent them, as I will if ever elected, and their is not much chance of that, as the media are stuck on the 2 horse race, if nothing it proved I do not back down from fighting for what I believe in, isnt that what we want from our budding representatives?
Oh wow, an appeal to patriotism. Classy. Will we get a No Real Scotsman, too?
But, no, I do think there were irregularities. As there are with any election. It’s 2 million pieces of paper flying around the state. Stuff’s bound to go wrong.
Even taking at face value the 1200 vote claim, that’s a lot more votes than it seems. Let’s assume those 16k postal ballots were all in the 3 closest electorates, all of which would have had to swing Liberal to prevent Labor from winning outright. In that case, those postal votes would need to have had roughly a 7.5% bias toward Liberal over the base 2pp of those electorates. Even if that were the case, it would still have only required Labor to offer a sweet deal to 1 independent. For Labor to have needed two independents onside, adding in the next closest seat would take the required bias to more than 13%. For the Libs to win outright would have required more than 25%.
Keep in mind, this would require an abnormally large bias for postal votes. Decades ago that might have been the case, but more recently postal votes have tended to follow the general voting pattern fairly closely. I’m talking a few percent difference at most. Not 7 – 25. It also assumes that all of those postal votes were only in those 3-4 swing seats. Given those seats were urban, and postal voting tends to be more predominant in rural electorates, it’s highly unlikely that would have been the case. Being generous, let’s say each of the swing seats got 3% of the postals. That means that for Labor to even *come close* to losing enough seats to bring independents into it, those postal votes would have needed to have a 75% bias toward the Liberal party.
Those irregularities might look like big numbers, but in the grand scheme they’re minuscule. The odds of them changing the outcome of the entire election are phenomenally tiny. It is *possible* they could have flipped Bright. Still unlikely, but possible. But you were asking the entire election be overturned, and those numbers simply would not warrant it for even the best outlined case. Which the above-linked article and the Chief Justice’s quote indicate yours was most assuredly not.
Yes, those irregularities warrant investigation. But there is a big difference between investigating irregularities and overturning an entire election. To my knowledge, they are being investigated, and you can be damned sure that the electoral commission are doing their utmost, being even more abnormally passionate about fair elections than you are purporting to be.
What I am arguing is simply that you are misrepresenting a great many things, and bordering on some outright lies. I do not like such things, so I am putting your claims under the microscope. For example, you originally said the Chief Justice emailed you. Then you changed your tune when challenged. There’s the above-demonstrated exaggeration of the problems with the election. You also tried to pretend that your submission was thrown out on a technicality and was still a strong case, when in fact it was just plain bad.
Dosent seem worth a reply or further argument, the issues listed were not the crux of the case, but I used them as they in themselves, are reason for further investigation, some patriotic people would say that if one person is denied their vote the election has failed, other than the court of disputed returns, their is no other way to force scrutiny full stop.
I took the action based on over 1000 written complaints and hundreds more less specific complaints, as one person, that is bloody huge, other issues brought up, included, people being turned away based on their attire, people finding themselves of the roll, witnesses to dead peoples names remaining on the roll, Nursing homes and hospitals being denied mobile polling, lack of prescribed information in the booths, and at no time would I benefit from a win, it was about honest democracy, seems to you tens of thousands of missing or dodgy votes is all part of the system, sorry I do not concur.
I would like to bring to your attention that under the law, no person can apply to invalidate an entire election regardless of the conduct, so some home work may be needed on your behalf, and I find that in itself ans insult, I stood up for my beliefs and the South Australian electorate who were denied their vote, and I will continue to fight for the most basic right “The free choice of an informed electorate” and you can stick to who cares, its all over, at least I got my vote.
Jesus Christ, Mark, let it go.
You got called on your bullshit, just own up to it. Say “You are obviously in better command of the facts than I am, and no matter how many more you present to me, I will not change my mind because I would rather believe in the fiction I have created, than the harsh reality you describe” and be done with it.
You’re posting on a website that’s devoted to printing everyone’s press releases, no matter how fact devoid or specious. If they are fact devoid or specious, they will be called out on it. Candidates like you are nine-tenths of the reason people don’t take independents and micro parties seriously, and that’s if they find out about them at all. You and your inanity discourage people from researching all candidates because you make everyone look less credible by the way you comport yourself.
You managed to get 1235 votes for your ticket above and below the line as first preferences in the 2010 SA state election, and you gave most of those directly to Rob Brokenshire, after they’d been through the F.R.E.E Party, two authoritarian independents, the goddamn Climate Sceptics, and the “I don’t want to pay tax on my massive investment portfolio” party.
Do you think an uninformed, unbiased voter is going to read your pathetic diatribes, comments and excuses and suddenly decide to vote for you? Sadly, because of the amount of candidates running in this federal election in SA, and with your position on the ballot, you’ll probably get more first preference votes than you did in the state election, and this will encourage you to keep trying, and to keep bleating about some nebulous, nefarious, evil conspiracy by the major parties.
Again with the appeal to patriotism. I should point out that hollow nationalism doesn’t really sway me all that much.
As I said, the election is/has been investigated. And I was never contesting that such an investigation would be wrong. I was contesting that the reality of your submission was far from what you were representing. And since you think it’s not “worth a reply” I’ll take that as you accepting that you were dishonest with your initial claims.
Not once did I say it was “all part of the system”. Attempting to portray my criticism of your misrepresentation of the truth as disregard for democracy is quite sad – not to mention another example of your misrepresentation of the truth. All I said was that it is inevitable that such things occur, as no system is perfect, and that they were not significant enough to warrant the election being overturned, according to the law.
If you were not attempting to have the election overturned, what prey tell was your intent? I suspect that again, you are attempting to gloss over the truth. Your own website links to an article saying that you petitioned for a new election. In fact, your website itself says that. A new election would indeed require overturning the previous once. As for your claim that no-one can apply to invalidate an entire election, I’m pretty sure s107 of the electoral act (also quoted on your website) indicates otherwise. It just says there needs to be a good reason to void an election, something that you – according to the Chief Justice – did not provide: “Something as important as an election result cannot be challenged by a petition that fails to identify adequately and with reasonable particulars what the allegations are, and what are the facts that are relied upon”
I’ve done my homework. Ad hominem attacks do not change that, nor do they obscure the fact that you have demonstrably been either lying through your teeth, or ignorant. If you have a problem with your half truths and outright lies being challenged, perhaps reconsider employing them.
“) cant argue with an expert, I must have made it all up, you found me out, I took it to the courts and lost my bike over it, because I was bored and had nothing else to do, caught out, how embarrassing for me.