The Victorian Electoral Fee has referred allegations of suspected postal vote tampering in two Melbourne council elections to police.
The VEC on Wednesday afternoon mentioned it had detected a excessive variety of a number of returned votes in Knox metropolis council, in Melbourne’s east, and Whittlesea metropolis council, in Melbourne’s north, after voting closed within the state’s council elections final month.
Each elections have been declared by the VEC and it has requested the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat) evaluate the leads to Whittlesea Lalor ward and Knox’s Baird ward. Peter Lockwood received Baird ward on a margin of 1.87% whereas Stevan Kozmevski secured a victory in Lalor on a 0.16% margin. There isn’t a options of wrongdoing by both candidate.
The Victorian electoral commissioner, Sven Bluemmel, mentioned the suspected interference was a “serious matter with significant penalties”. The utmost penalty for the alleged offence is 5 years’ imprisonment and as much as $99,000 in fines.
Chatting with reporters, he mentioned he was “very disappointed” over the alleged tampering.
“We take it extremely seriously,” he mentioned.
He mentioned a number of the suspected fraudulent votes had been included within the depend.
“It depends on whether they came in before the close of voting or after the close of voting. Some may have been admitted for the count, some not,” he mentioned.
Bluemmel mentioned 128 ballots in Whittlesea’s Lalor ward and 61 Knox’s Baird ward had been detected as suspicious returns.
He mentioned after the same incident in 2020, which led to a former Merri-bek councillor later pleading responsible to vote tampering, the VEC had made “further safeguards” and monitoring instruments.
“Our proactive monitoring identified this and identified it quickly,” he mentioned.
The VEC has additionally referred the alleged matter to the Native Authorities Inspectorate for an investigation into alleged electoral offences.
The chief municipal inspector, Michael Stefanovic, mentioned the LGI would work with the VEC to determine the character of the matter and liaise with Victoria police relating to the suitable response.
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Bluemmel mentioned the VEC first referred the Lalor ward matter to the LGI on 30 October and police on 1 November. For Knox, the fee made referrals to the LGI on 6 November and to police on 7 November.
Requested in regards to the timeframe, Bluemmel mentioned “the legislative time frame requires me to keep going with the election”.
“There’s an election process that I have to undertake in accordance with the legislative time frame. And things like this don’t allow me to pause that in any way where something like this comes up,” he mentioned.
In a press release, the VEC mentioned it has “detected higher rates of multiple ballot paper envelopes returned appearing to be from the same voters in both these wards following the close of voting”.
“As required by law, the voter declarations on each multiple return were carefully examined. A number of multiple returns were set aside as rejected after comparison with the declarations from replacement ballot paper envelopes. This highlighted a pattern of irregularities,” the VEC mentioned.
The VEC mentioned by regulation it was required to declare the election consequence for each wards earlier than it may make a referral to the Vcat.
