The Australian Electoral Commision (AEC) says fraud is unlikely after X (Twitter) users claimed to have posted multiple votes ahead of Saturday’s referendum.
Yes, since voting opened last week people have taken to social media where they appeared to brag about voting more than once in The Voice referendum.
“I’ve voted 10 times already” one user posted, accompanied with a map of voting sites they claimed to have been to. Another said they walked into a voting place and a person from AEC “just handed me a stack of ballots”.
Don’t worry though, the AEC claims it’s just a bit of shitposting. But such claims are still taken seriously.
“Everybody is marked off an electronic list at all early voting centres. This is real-time mark-off from the role. As such, this doesn’t seem likely,” AEC said in a tweeted response.
“However, we are of course passing the details on. Multiple voting is an offence – thanks for flagging this info about yourself.”
Remember kids – don’t joke about electoral fraud online or they’ll put you in internet jail.
Speaking to PEDESTRIAN, AEC confirmed there was no evidence to suggest genuine voter fraud.
“It is real-time mark-off of the roll across all early voting centres. If you’re not marked off the roll in real time at an early voting centre (because you’re from outside the local area) then you complete a declaration vote where the details are used to mark-off the central roll.
“We’ve passed this claim on for review but the above measures mean it is highly likely to simply be someone being intentionally false and provoking people online for a reaction.
“If multiple declaration votes are cast, only one is admitted and the person can be deemed an apparent multiple voters and potentially referred to the AFP.”
Given that voter fraud has been a recurring headline these past few years it’s fair to be concerned, but don’t worry: those at the AEC know what they’re doing.
