...applied polling booth officers to voters' fingers to stop them voting more than once. Unfortunately, some inattentive or ill-motivated poll attendants applied non-indelible ink that could be scrubbed off by those planning return visits. Field trials usually produce mishaps. It shouldn't be difficult to provide safeguards in the form of designated ink brands before Afghans vote next time.

No such easy solutions lie ahead for us. We rely on booth attendants looking us keenly in the eye and asking: "Have you voted before in this election?" I don't have access to the statistics but believe a "yes" response is rare. Booth attendants can consult a master roll which lists the sex and age of registered voters as well as their names and addresses. This prevents little old ladies voting in the names of front row forwards, and vice versa, but generally speaking it is a porous defence.

Moreover, your multiple votes count in Australia. There is usually no way the Australian Electoral Commission can determine which vote was cast by the real Frank Devine and which by imposters, or whether the real Frank Devine skipped from booth to booth, voting again and again within his electorate. There may, in the wash-up, be ten votes attributed to me--but which are the fraudulent ones? Unless there are reliable witnesses who spotted me, or the imposters, up to our dirty tricks, or unless I confess, there is no way the AEC can tell. The secret ballot naturally prevents the AEC's determining the candidate for whom each of ten votes was cast. Should nine of the ten votes be arbitrarily eliminated, they might, improperly, include my valid one. So all ten stand. Strange but true.

Concerns about the fragility of our voting system have been lodged in the back of my mind for some time. It took persistently patronising comment in the Australian media about the shortcomings...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



More articles from Quadrant
Liberal boofheads: (a chapter from Legends of the Baggy Green).(Sport), December 01, 2004
To a friend on her birthday.(First Person), December 01, 2004
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The devil and the deep blue sea.(Editorial), December 01, 2004

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