This is not something our electoral system is designed to account for. There is nothing stopping a bunch of Zionists from registering a political party called 'Free Palestine' and direct all their preferences to a cause at complete odds with what voters expect they will be supporting.

I bet there'd be some sort of ramifications if someone registered the name 'new libs' and redirected all preferences to Labor or Greens.

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[–] 19 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Mate it's not even illegal according to the AEC to mimic AEC livery and 'how to vote' forms and placards to trick Chinese immigrants into voting for the LNP.

Nor is it illegal to hand out "How to vote for Greens / LNP / Labour" cards at polling stations as a member of an opposition party, and deceptively place all preferences for the opposite intentions.

Nor is it illegal to mimic the AEC and puport to simply be a government representative enabling your application to a postal vote, while actually being from Liberal or Labor party and taking any submitted information as your own, to do whatever you like with.

So there's zero chance they'll care about a party misrepresenting their political goals.

Australians have very little freedom of speech enshrined in law, but what little there is aims to protect politicians only.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I think the AEC (and related State bodies) has codes it must enforce under its legislation, anything outside those codes it cannot enforce and would be going beyond it's remit to attempt to. The agency won't have the latitude that the judiciary have, nor should they.

    Although these cases all build on the reality that the AEC's rules may be inadequate for the multitude of bad faith partisans infecting Australian democracy.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    The fake Chinese AEC signage seems like something they could take action on but chose not to. Section 329 of the Electoral Act makes it an offence to publish any material that is "likely to mislead or deceive an elector in relation to the casting of a vote". Ultimately it would be for a court to decide, but they certainly could have at least tried to make the case, if they had wanted to.

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