1. reports of the VEC accessing the electronic voting Kiosks results prior to the close of the poll, This was somewhat gloss over and turned into a question of secrecy of the ballot – It was a question of security of the ballot not secrecy.

2. Publication of the preference data files in a timely fashion (not three months after the election following the need to make an FOI application and even then a partial set of data) – Recent reports and statements made by Steve Tully indicate that the VEC had deleted the preliminary Data files? WHY? Do you really believe that the VEC would delete this information and not record or make a backup as any professional IT process would ensure was undertaken as a matter of due course.

3. The issue of the calculation of surplus transfer vote and segmentation of the distribution of excluded candidates votes has been referred to the next meeting of the EMC. This is an important issue as Analysis; of the 2007 Senate Vote has shown discrepancies in the way in which the STV is calculated. The system was designed at to facilitate a manual counting process for the senate. With the introduction of a computerised accounting system the system needs to be changed to eliminate the distortion in the value of the vote transfer and ideally introduce a re-iterative counting process where the distribution is reset following every exclusion and all ballot papers are re-distributed according to voters preferences in a single transaction per candidate. – See latest submission.

More questions and hopefully not just polite firing shots across into the air…

4. There still has not been a satisfactory explanation provided as to why the TOTAL number of votes significantly changes in number between the two counts in Western metropolitan. If the results of a recount change the overall result of the election then it should be the right of the losing party to request a third recount to verify the accuracy of the second count. The count should continue until the results have been confirmed at least twice with no overall change. Without a third recount you cannot be sure that the recount had not introduced an otherwise indicated error.

5. The VEC uses a random sampling quality control system. The AEC as I understand uses a double entry check verification process, the later being more accurate. Access to the data files allows for more detailed scrutiny of the preference allocation and count. without access to this data it is impossible to properly scutinize an electronic count.

The sommisisoner in responce to an inquiry by the Parlaimentary Commitee stated…

In response to (the) request seeking preliminary count preference data for the Western and/or Northern Metropolitan Regions, I assume he means the ballot paper data stored by the computers during the preliminary count rather than the recount.

The VEC does not have the preliminary data – it is overwritten as part of the recount process. A recount is a fresh examination of all ballot papers under scrutiny. Any challenged papers are set aside and formality determined by the Electoral Commissioner under scrutiny. The previous count has no bearing on the recount.

if this informaton is true it raises serious questions as to the professionalism of the Commissions IT department warranting an independent systems review/audit

Or if the information is false then it would seem that the commisisoner is in avoidance mode and may have deliberalty mislead the house an offence if proven warrents his resignation or explusion.

The report on the way in which preferneces are distributed and the caluclation of the Surplus transfer vale is not addressed in the report/ The examples provided are related to the Vcitroian Senate which the State Parlaiment has overall responsibility for. The Senate being a States house..

There are more questions that have been left unasnwered but are still under review.

“The Northern Metropolitan region recount, along with the recounts for the
Western Metropolitan and Western Victoria regions, were conducted on
Wednesday 13 December 2006 at the MECC in the presence of around 350
scrutineers. For the recount, all above-the-line ballot papers were
transported to the MECC from voting centres. The recount itself comprised a
manual check of over 1,000,000 ballot papers. The VEC summarised this
event:
Above-the-line ballot papers for each group were checked separately. The
preferences on all ballot papers marked below-the-line were data-entered into the
VEC’s computer count application. As a final step, prior to the calculation of the
result, the total number of above-the-line ballot papers for each group was entered
into the VEC’s computer-count application.941
During the recount, the VEC eliminated the human transcription error that
occurred during the Northern Metropolitan region count, resulting in the
election of a different fifth candidate.”942

The VEC advised that incidents of multiple voting are detected when the list
of the names of those who voted are scanned post-election. Any elector who
is marked as having voted more than once is investigated. At the completion
of the apparent multiple voter follow-up from the 2006 Victorian state
election, 91 voters admitted to having voted more than once. These voters
were “cautioned and advised that if they voted more than once at future
elections prosecution action would be taken”.802

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/emc/2006%20State%20Election/final%20report.html

http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/emc/2006%20State%20Election/Submissions/22_van_der_Craats.pdf

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/legislativeAssembly/tableOffice/documents/TabledPapers/2008/5208T3380.pdf

When the Parliamentary committee asked the VEC for a copy of this data the commission responded by stating that they have deleted the information.

This has raised a number of additional questions about the conduct of that election.

There is an extra ordinary waste of lmited public resources in maintinaing a state and Federal Electoral Commissions. Surely tax payers would be better off if there was one professional electoral independent authorty.