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Is the Voice referendum RIGGED? Let’s talk about it.

Transcript

Is the referendum being rigged? 

The short answer is we don’t know. 

Yet there are many bad actors out there screaming very loudly, without the evidence, that the referendum is invalid or rigged. 

I’m worried some of our opponents in the Yes campaign are pushing these people to make you think it’s not worth turning up to vote. 

You may have seen the polls.  

The only way the Yes campaign can win at this stage is if people who are going to vote no, simply don’t turn up. 

It’s valid to be worried about the integrity of elections and the referendum. 

For years now, I’ve been working hard in the Senate to make improvements to Australia’s election integrity so that everyone’s vote is counted fairly. 

I’ve had some wins, and I’m still working hard on other unresolved issues. 

All of that work will mean nothing if people don’t turn up and write NO on the ballot paper in the first place. 

If you want to get more involved sign up as a scrutineer, in which your job is to watch the votes being counted and to make sure it’s done properly. 

Political parties can appoint scrutineers, apply to One Nation to become one today. 

Remember, voting is a few minutes of your day every few years. 

Can you do that for all our fellow Australians? And I promise to keep doing everything I can to make sure your vote is counted fairly. 

Stop Albanese’s proposal to divide Australia on race. On your referendum ballot paper write N-O.  

We receive many questions about the integrity of elections and observations from members of the public and volunteers at polling booths.

We investigated the many concerns that people have and provide answers to the most common questions asked.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact us.

I receive a lot of constituent inquiries regarding election issues. My staff look into these and we created a file of potential electoral irregularities. I have been working through these potential issues with the AEC for three years, and still there are questions on the list. The AEC are doing a great job of running elections and a crap job of explaining irregularities when they occur.

Elections can always be more secure and more efficiently run. The AEC would be well advised to work with critics to solve these issues off these issues or explain them openly and honestly. I was pleased that Commissioner Rogers met with my staff and reviewed these issues a few weeks ago. I thank the Commissioner and his team for his time. As a result many old issues were explained to our satisfaction. Today I asked about those that were not adequately explained.

The answers today on the quality of the electoral roll for instance confirms our suspicions that there are 1.5m incorrect entries on the roll, based just on a data matching exercise against known databases – usually drivers licenses. It is One Nation’s position that only a physical audit can really get to the bottom of how many orphan or incorrect entries are padding out our electoral rolls. This is an urgent issue. A request for the last known proper audit that was promised at our meeting was sidestepped, so this is something I will pursue.

Answers also dealt with the question of why some people get postal vote applications they did not request in the name of previous residents of their premises. Postal vote applications are often made after a letterbox drop by a major party or activist organisation. Those postal vote applications are returned to the political party, who have, according to testimony, created their own voter database of these likely supporters. Are these groups submitting postal vote applications on behalf of voters without their knowledge, including voters who have moved on? This is a really dodgy way to do postal voting. Applications must go directly to the AEC to prevent this sort of voter interference.

Mr Rogers did provide assurance on other issues around ballot box security, and we look forward to getting an actual ballot box seal to test for ourselves. One Nation believes the best system for moving ballot boxes from temporary voting locations to the regional counting centre is a point to point professional courier with GPS locating so there can be no doubt the ballot box was secure in transit.

Regional counting centres should also be equipped with alarms and security cameras.

Finally I asked about the new audits that the AEC were required to have conducted as a result of legislation passed in the last Parliament as a result of One Nation’s actions. There seems to be some confusion on which audit we were talking about, so I will follow that up with a more detailed request.

These issues should in no way discourage Australians from voting or be taken to mean our elections are rigged in any way. Every Australian can have confidence Australia has amongst the world’s most accurate elections, however there is always room for improvement. We live in an internet age where one report can be amplified thousands of time to create an impression of impropriety that is not fair on the 100,000 Australians who help run our elections. More effort by the AEC to address these “internet rumours” is needed.

If you know a 16 or 17 year old send this video to them.

To you, 16/17 year old, don’t worry about protesting the end of the world. Focus on having fun, hanging out with your friends and getting your P plates.

We adults wish we had more time to do that.

Transcript

This is my message to our 16- and 17-year-old Australians. You can okay boomer me as much as you want. I’ll happily cop it. Yet, as someone who is 67 and grey haired, I want to let you in on a little life secret. The Greens over here want you to think voting makes you an adult. It’s a trap. It’s something that no one here has really mentioned, but I remember that when I was your age you really don’t want to be an adult yet. Trust me, it kind of sucks and it’s hard.

The Greens are adults. Listening to their speeches, do they seem like happy people? Adults have lots of bills: car rego bills, electricity bills, water bills, gas bills, car insurance bills, private health bills, dental bills, phone bills and more. You might even have to start paying for your own Netflix. Then you have to go to work everyday, on repeat, daily, for 40 years until you retire or die. It’s 9 am to 5 pm—at least!—in an office. It’s up early before the sun rises if you’re a tradie. Don’t forget to do all your laundry in between as well. Then, if you work really hard and get a good job, the government will start stealing 33 cents out of every dollar you earn and waste it on something. These are just some of the responsibilities that come with being an adult.

As fun as I’m sure all this sounds, there’s much more. These are just some of the responsibilities that come with voting. They will all come more quickly than you think, and you will be voting sooner than you realise. Until then, just focus on finishing school or choosing a trade. Don’t listen to the people saying that you need to protest or the world will end. It won’t. For decades we’ve been told the lie that the world will end in five years or maybe 10 years. Hang out with your friends. Just have fun and practise to get your P-plates. You’ll soon have plenty of time to protest and vote and do all the boring stuff that comes with being an adult. It will be sooner than you think—much sooner than you think.

Fifteen months ago I asked the Australian Electoral Commission questions around election integrity. I was expecting to have my questions answered and to be reassured our elections were safe. Instead I had bland assurances everything was safe and elections were audited. Proof of those audits was never provided.

After spending all of 2021 pursuing the AEC, One Nation presented our Electoral Legislation Amendment (Voter Integrity) Bill 2021 to the Senate. Special Minister of State Morton finally realised we did have a problem and the government passed a suite of bills to address our concerns. My questions on Tuesday to the Australian Electoral Commission covered the only area the Government was not able to fix because of opposition from the ALP and the Greens – voter ID. The need for voter ID dates from 1995 when the AEC stopped residency checks, which is a way of auditing the voter rolls.

Out of date voter rolls allow dishonest players to vote multiple times, at multiple booths using a different name from the voter roll each time. These are the names of voters who have left the country, passed away, moved away and so on, plus human and data-matching errors at the AEC The only way to ensure every vote comes from a properly registered voter, voting once under their own name is to ask for voter ID.

The answers to my questions to Tom Rogers, the Electoral Commissioner were far from forthright. I will be resuming this matter in the new Parliament. I urge all Australians to enrol to vote, and to exercise your right to vote in the next election.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for attending again today. Can I start with a compliment to your social media team? It has a nice balance of humour and information in what is sometimes a very hostile environment. That’s reassuring and pleasing.

I’d also like to compliment Minister Morton for his voting integrity bills and for acknowledging the work that I did informing those initiatives with my integrity of elections bill, which preceded them. It’s very important for people to understand, and for voters right around the country to be assured, that their vote will not be wasted and that there is no reason to not vote. There is every reason to turn up now, because we’ll be having audits of the election processes.

My first question today is as a result of multiple reports from constituents who went into a booth in previous elections and were told they had already voted. This may have been human error by the poll worker, yet I think it’s the only issue that Minister Morton’s electoral integrity package failed to address that my bill did.

For clarity, there are two types of multiple voting: one where a person votes multiple times under their own name, and another where a person votes multiple times under different names. The first one, multiple voting under one’s own name, has been well examined, and the conclusion seems to be that it does not make a tangible difference, because we’ve now got electronic rolls in most booths—not all, but most. So let’s turn to the second one, people voting multiple times under different names. Has the AEC done any work on this issue?

Mr Rogers : We look at the entire voting process at the end of every election. We put, as you know, a submission in to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, where we raise issues that we think have been flagged during the conduct of the previous election. Many of those observations are our observations, and many of them have also been passed to us by others. The issue of multiple voting was dealt with in those submissions previously and in supplementary submissions. What you’re referring to there is impersonation, and that’s not something that we’ve had any evidence has had any sort of impact on the election at all. It’s not something that was raised with us in any formal way previously. It’s not something that has been put into a submission to the joint standing committee at all, to the best of my memory. So that’s not something we’re looking at, at all.

The other thing with impersonation is that those sorts of things do become known, because, if someone was doing impersonation on a large scale, we would get feedback from a range of different sources that that would be the case. Don’t forget that many of these polling booths are actually community polling booths, where people know other people in the community as well. It’s not something that’s been personally raised with me. I’m not sure, Deputy Commissioner, if it’s been raised with you.

Mr Pope : No, that’s correct. I would add that there’s another category that is what we call ‘apparent multivoting’, which is actually an administrative error where someone has been marked as having voted, on a paper certified list, and they have put a wrong mark against a person’s name. Sometimes it can be seen as being something else, but it is simply an administrative error.

Senator ROBERTS: Is there a phone number or a way of reporting occurrences in order to further investigate the problem, if there is a problem?

Mr Rogers : On our website, there is a—

Mr Pope : fraud email reporting process—

Mr Rogers : and people are welcome to use that.

Senator ROBERTS: The AEC stopped residency checks last century, in 1995. When was the last time the AEC audited a sample of the electoral roll to get an idea of accuracy?

Mr Rogers : We use a whole range of tools to check the accuracy of the electoral role, and we conduct internal audits on that. I think the ANAO also conducted an audit of the electoral roll. I’m not sure if anyone remembers when that might have been—there are a lot of shaking heads—but we could find that out for you fairly easily. So it’s been audited even by the ANAO. In fact, now that I’m warming to my theme, I think it may have been audited twice. I’d have to check that for you. If I’m wrong, I apologise to the ANAO, but I think they came back to check the results of the initial audit. I’m happy to come back to you on that.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, if you could, please.

Mr Rogers : So there’s more than one way of auditing the accuracy of the roll. The second thing is when we get data on someone’s residence from more than one data source, which is what we do—we effectively triangulate that data to make sure that it’s accurate—we also do, as I mentioned before, our own internal checks of the accuracy of our data entry to make sure that that is an accurate process.

Mr Pope : We do. And we match our data with a range of other data sources, and we also do an annual quality assurance process.

Senator ROBERTS: So, although you say that you haven’t had any evidence or you don’t see much possibility of it, this is surely a case where voter ID would stop someone from voting multiple times under different names or from voting under the names of people who are no longer voting themselves. I know what you’re saying about the community, but sometimes people rock up to a booth that’s not in their community.

Mr Rogers : I might perhaps repeat what we said at the last estimates. I’m loath to get involved in the issue of the voter ID process. I think that’s a highly political issue. It is a matter for parliament. I’m genuinely trying to be right down the centre here. I understand the arguments on both sides of this, but it has become a very polarising debate in places where this has been implemented. So that’s a matter for parliament. What we’re reflecting on here is the processes that we put in place to assure the vote within the legislation that’s currently valid. That bit about voter ID is something that I think I said a little flippantly last time, ‘We have a definite policy not to have a policy on,’ because we’re going to get dragged into that process.

Senator ROBERTS: I can see that. I accept it. It is ironic, Minister, that we need an ID to get into a pub but that we don’t need an ID to get in to vote. That’s just a comment.

Senator Birmingham: Your comment’s noted, Senator Roberts. The government would wish that there had been, or were, broader support for some of the ID measures that, as you acknowledge, Minister Morton had brought forward.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair.

There has been a lot of concern that our upcoming election could be stolen. One Nation and I were also worried about this. Last year One Nation introduced an electoral reform bill which introduced audits of our elections and generally changed our electoral laws to prevent elections being stolen.
 
The Morrison Government under Minister Morton eventually agreed on the need for our bill and introduced a series of electoral reforms that implemented everything we asked for, except voter ID which remains before the Parliament.
 
Australia’s elections will now be audited before the election, and again after the election. With the other checks and balances introduced in this round of reform it is simply impossible for a federal election to be stolen.
 
One Nation is proud of the work we did to ensure Australian federal election integrity.

Every registered Australian voter is now free to participate in the electoral process, as a candidate, poll worker, supporter or donor confident in the knowledge that your efforts will not be wasted.
 
The result of the next Federal election will be the will of the people.

You can see a history of hard work and questioning I did on this over a long time here: Election Integrity Articles

The Australian National Audit Office is one of the best agencies in government. They do great work chasing down wasteful government spending and exposing poor management.

The few times they have looked at the conduct of our elections, like in 2015, the report card was a solid fail. They haven’t audited the conduct of our elections since then despite promising to.

Last night at Senate Estimates the Auditor General was very honest and upfront with me. He cannot confirm the Australian Electoral Commission has comprehensive performance standards for elections. He cannot assure the Australian people that the electoral systems are fit for purpose.

He did say that the way for the community to be assured about the integrity of elections is through the Parliament acting. One Nation’s Election Integrity Bill (read more) was written for this very good reason. Whatever happens in the next election, if it passes, the public can have confidence in the result.

Parliament must pass an election integrity bill before the next election.

Transcript

Senator Rice, Senator Roberts, very quickly.

Thank you chair, and thank you all for attending. Hello Mr. Heir. I’ll just give some background, and then the questions will be quick.

Very quickly, Senator Roberts.

If I can reference the report titled third follow-up audit into the Australian electoral commission’s preparation for the conduct of federal elections. It’s ANAO audit number 6 2015-16. This inquiry was called by the joint standing committee on election electoral matters. The terms of reference were a performance audit focusing on the adequacy of the Australian electoral commission’s implementation of recommendations arising from earlier, and they are audit reports. Your findings were and I’ll quote, no meaningful action has been taken had been taken prior to 2013. The election that triggered the audit in relation to those recommendations directed towards more secure reporting of election night counts on the development of comprehensive or the development of comprehensive performance standards for the conduct of elections. And finally, conclusion number eight, ANAO plans to undertake a follow-up audit following the next federal election to examine adequacy and effectiveness of the AECs implementation of these 10 recommendations in that report. Did you do that followup audit?

We did. We didn’t do a followup, followup audit Senator of exactly that nature. We did a further audit, which was, which was focused on particular aspects of procurement, including IT, for the scanning system system following the next election. But now we didn’t follow up each of those recommendations as was then proposed.

Thank you. Can you confirm that the AEC now has comprehensive performance standards for the conduct of federal elections?

No, Senator we haven’t been in there to conduct a performance audit in this space since that, that one I mentioned. So, no, we don’t, we don’t, we don’t have current knowledges as to that know.

I like your quick answers. How, how would anyone know if that would, if they’d done that?

I suspect you’d ask them in estimates.

We’ve asked them lots of times and their questions are their answers. Why didn’t you do the follow-up audit? That would have been the fourth followup audit on the AEC.

I think we, what we decided to do was in the context of what was going on in the, in the office at the time, which was the IT procurement, that that was probably a, a better order to undertake in the AEC. It’s not a huge agency. It’s not the one. We go into every year. So, so about picking the topic. And at that particular time we thought that was that that procurement audit was a, a better topic to undertake.

Can you say with confidence that the AEC systems now are fit for purpose?

We haven’t been into the entity.

How can people be assured of the integrity of future elections?

I think through the parliamentary processes is the appropriate way for the community to be assured through the oversight. The parliament gives of the, the office.

I could make a comment. Do you not against you? Do you have the authority to audit?

Yes, I say yes.

Okay. My last question chair, in your submission to the finance and public administration’s inquiry into my Commonwealth electoral amendment integrity of elections, bill 2021. ANAO made this statement, I quote in accordance with the auditor General’s mandate under the auditor general act, 1997, the auditor general is empowered to conduct a review of a particular aspect of the operations of the AEC at any time. ANAO could have conducted a followup audit in respect to the AEC’s noncompliance with multiple ANAO audits. Yet you chose not to why I?

Think of.

If there were multiple audits.

We were doing.

My multiple follow-up audit. Sorry.

We did multiple followup audits then the last audit we did, I made a decision that the.

Not follow up at the specific electronics.

Yeah. That was the reason.

Will you audit the next election.

I.

Was seen it also understanding it through. The first three follow-up audits followed what happened in the 2013 election with Senate Ballot Papers in Western Australia being effectively lost. And whilst there are three audits that audit was conducted the then audit general received a specific request from the joint standing committee of electoral matters for us to do follow-up audit work, looking at an earlier audit we did have the 2007 election as to where those recommendations have been implemented. The only reason there were three followup audit wasn’t was because the joint standing committee of electoral matters, wanted us to one of particular things looked at very quickly. And so that’s why there were three performance audit. So we packaged up what are the recommendations we could follow up as a higher priority in a shorter timeframe and then a medium timeframe and then longer timeframe. So it was, it was by seen. By three audit was really packaging out the follow-up to that all the way earlier audit report, to meet a request of the parliament, So, you know.

So as Mr. Hare said, it’s, it’s a matter of looking at the, what the followup is in context of what’s going on. Okay. Thanks, Chair.

When I started researching election integrity I was doing it to show that our elections are secure. That is not what I found. There is no requirement to audit the results and no ID requirements to ensure there is no double voting. Our electoral legislation is full of holes. My bill seeks to fix those holes using audits that many well researched committees, agencies and investigations have already suggested. There really isn’t much reason to vote against it.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I present the the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Integrity of Elections) Bill 2021, which amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

This bill provides for the routine auditing of the electronic component of Australian federal elections and for the provision of voter identification.

It should also be noted that this bill does not look backward to previous elections, but rather forward to ensure confidence in the next election.

During COVID the actions of unelected bureaucrats and incompetent politicians has wiped out small businesses and jobs, disrupted lives and reduced many people to desperation.

The next election will be a powder keg.

It is essential to ensure that Australians can accept the result and move on.

Suspicion of the outcome can be easily fueled, especially on social media, and turned into violence by those who seek to manipulate the result for their own ends.

The level of trust in the result must be commensurate with the current heightened level of risk.

When I started researching election integrity it was to show that our elections are secure. That is not what I found.

The Australian National Audit Office conducted three audits into the 2013 federal election. Their final report came out in 2016. This is what ANAO said about the Australian Electoral Commission (the AEC):

In 2014 the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters wrote to the Auditor General seeking a performance audit focusing on the adequacy of the Australian Electoral Commission implementation of recommendations arising from earlier ANAO audits of the AEC.

The Auditor General decided to conduct 3 related performance audits.

All three reports found that the AEC had not adequately and effectively implemented the earlier ANAO recommendations. The reports concluded that in order to protect the integrity of the Australian electoral system and rebuild confidence in the AEC these recommendations should be implemented.

AUDITOR-GENERAL REPORT NO. 6 OF 2015–16

The report went on to say:

“ANAO plans to undertake a follow-up audit following the next federal election, in 2016, to examine the adequacy and effectiveness of the AEC’s implementation of the ten recommendations made by ANAO across three reports.”

AUDITOR-GENERAL REPORT NO. 6 OF 2015–16

Those recommendations included:

“the AEC must develop a strategy for deeper reform to ensure and demonstrate integrity in all aspects of the election, including a fundamental overhaul of the AEC’s policies and procedures to restore confidence in the electoral process”.

AUDITOR-GENERAL REPORT NO. 6 OF 2015–16

Let me say that again – a fundamental overhaul to ensure election integrity.

Mr President the follow-up audit to test how well the AEC implemented this fundamental review into election integrity never occurred.

Perhaps someone should do a bill to bring on that audit. Oh wait Mr President, I did.

Were ANAO happy for this direction – apparently not.

In their submission to this bill ANAO said my bill was not necessary as they had the power to audit the AEC at any time.

If that is the case then they should get on with it.

Mr President New South Wales and Western Australia have provisions in their electoral acts to audit state elections.

New South Wales conducts an audit before each election to ensure systems are fit for purpose and then audits again after each election to ensure integrity, and to see what can be improved for next time.

Western Australia audits after every election.

There is no audit function currently specified in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

This bill creates a function for the Auditor General to audit the operation of the AEC twice in each election cycle:

  1. In the lead up to the election; and
  2. From polling day to the declaration of the poll.

 The audit provided for in this bill covers electronic measures, and tests if:

“the use of authorised technology produces the same result as would be obtained without the use of authorised technology.”

Put simply this is asking the Auditor General to ensure that the use of computerised voter rolls, tallying, preference allocations and related matters produced a result that accurately reflects the will of the people.

ANAO felt that was too high a bar to meet, I would consider ensuring the will of the people was accurately reflected in the result was the bare minimum for any election audit.

This bill does not specify what will be audited. The decision regarding the operation of the audit is best left to the agencies conducting the audit.

Secondly, this bill authorises the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to audit and monitor computer systems for unauthorised access internally and externally.

This is targeting both unauthorised access from within the system and unauthorised external access by malicious entities.

The Australia Signals Directorate is currently conducting a cyber “uplift program” at the Australian Electoral Commission. While the program is most welcome, there is no basis in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 or the Intelligence Services Act 2001 for that program.

This bill brings legislation into line with current practice.

Mr President In May Senate estimates I asked the Australian Electoral Commission simple questions regarding their auditing. I was assured that audits are occurring. On no occasion then or since have the following questions been answered:

  • Who conducted the audit?
  • When was the audit conducted?
  • What was audited?
  • What was the result?
  • Have any changes been made as a result of the audit?

It is disturbing that such an audit could happen behind closed doors without direction or structure. It is more disturbing that this program has no legal basis in the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

We should not have to rely on the admirable conscientiousness of the Australian Signals Directorate. We should be able to rely on the completeness of our legislation.

Mr President I also looked at other issues around election integrity.

First up was a simple question: At the Senate Scanning Centre is the electronic data file containing each vote ever compared back to the paper ballot after the vote has been adjudicated?

That answer is no. At no time is the electronic record of a vote checked back against the paper ballot once the ballot is adjudicated.

Some disputed votes are held back and adjudicated later in the counting process, then filed away.

There is no routine sampling beyond that point. That is not acceptable.

The third part of my bill is for voter ID. Most of the recommendations in the ANAO report, that was never followed up, went to failures in the integrity of voter rolls.

It is too late to go back now and audit those rolls before the next election, by way of re-commencing residency checks, as ANAO recommended.

It is not too late for a quick fix – which is voter ID. Asking for simple identification will act as an audit on the rolls in real time, and ensure every vote cast was legitimate.

This is not my idea. Recommendation 21 of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Inquiry into the 2019 Federal Election called for voter identification to be introduced. This same finding was made in 2016 and 2013.

Schedule 2 of this bill is drafted to give effect to the committee recommendation as literally as possible.

Voters must present a form of acceptable identification to be issued with an ordinary pre-poll or election day vote. Authorised identification must be suitably broad so as to not actively prevent electors from casting an ordinary ballot.

This bill allows a wide range of acceptable voter ID. The AEC is empowered to make further regulations to ensure voters are not disenfranchised.

The AEC noted in their submission to the JSCEM inquiry that:

“multiple voting is frequently the subject of media commentary and social media speculation. Such a degree of focus is entirely understandable: there can hardly be a more emblematic component of trust in electoral results than ensuring eligible voters only exercise the franchise [appropriately].”

Multiple voting is a red herring in this debate. My bill is not concerned with multiple voting, it is concerned with ensuring every vote cast was made according to law.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act (Integrity of Elections Bill) 2021 is about protecting confidence in our elections.

The cyber integrity of our elections and the use of voter identification is essential to that confidence.

I recommend the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Integrity of Elections) Bill 2021 to the Senate.

Suspicion about the results of our elections is an existential threat to our country. Confidence comes from having strict auditing and checking procedures. We’ve seen that these auditing, checks and system are not fit for purpose. One Nation is asking for those deficiencies to be rectified.

Senate Estimates Questioning:

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, here we go again. Yet again the Labor Party are about to sit comfortably in the laps of the Liberals and Nationals to vote through measures that are in both of their own interests. Just yesterday I spoke of this parliament being dysfunctional to the point of being a crime scene. The very next day here we are watching the proof unfold again before our very eyes.

For those watching at home and wondering why One Nation did not use these electoral bills to introduce actual electoral reform, the answer is simple: the way these bills were written. There is one bill per topic and they include a long description that prevents One Nation from introducing amendments that move outside of that very narrow, restrictive scope.

If the government and Labor wanted to join three bills together and vote in one line, they should have produced the three bills as an omnibus bill that One Nation and the crossbench could have amended—and the legislation badly needs amendment. Senators Wong and Birmingham are once again making a mockery of the democratic process—dodgy siblings doing another dirty deal behind closed doors. When are we going to start writing numbers on the perspex screens so we can distinguish between the Liberal-Nationals and Labor! The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters made 27 recommendations towards more fair and effective elections. The ‘Lib-Lab duopoly’ has again rushed legislation before the Senate to implement a grand total of three of those recommendations, none of which does anything to ensure the integrity of our electoral process.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Offences and Preventing Multiple Voting) Bill 2021 pretends to do something about multiple voting. In the last three elections, the Australian Electoral Commission reviewed thousands of case of multiple voting and referred a few hundred of those to the Australian Federal Police for prosecution, who made the decision to prosecute none of them. Not one person has been prosecuted as a result of the ordinary operations of the Electoral Act despite recommendations to do so and despite that law being on the books for a very long time. That may be why the government has chosen to abandon the legal system and refer multiple voting to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Yesterday we saw cybercrime warrants being moved from the criminal court system to the administrative court system; today we have multiple voting moving over as well. One Nation is uncomfortable with the growing power of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and with the whole concept of having two court systems. Criminal courts are founded in biblical and common law; administrative courts have no such higher purpose to be called on for guidance.

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021 is clearly an attempt by Lib-Lab to knock out smaller parties and entrench the power of the status quo. I hear the anger on social media over this measure, yet I have some questions in return. Should a multimillionaire be allowed to use his wealth to buy political influence through the United Australia Party? The requirement to have 500 supporters is not going to slow down a very wealthy individual, yet a requirement to have 1,500 supporters will—unless that party actually has grassroots support. This legislation is saying to Clive Palmer, ‘Put your supporters where your mouth is, not where your money is.’ There is criticism from some new parties who should be more worried about themselves. If you start fact-checking the memes you are spreading, and start offering voters evidence based policy, perhaps 1,500 may be more achievable. I understand that Senator Lambie too is in opposition to this bill. This raises a good question for the government—oops, the Lib-Labs—to answer: why is it 1,500 voters for registration in a populous state and 1,500 in Tasmania? Shouldn’t it be some percentage of registered voters in that state?

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Counting, Scrutiny and Operational Efficiencies) Bill 2021 makes a number of small changes to voting. These have been mentioned by other speakers and I will not review those here. How will all these changes affect the integrity of our elections? Well, we don’t know. We don’t know now and we won’t know afterwards because our elections are not audited. My interest in election integrity started in January 2021, following the US presidential election. My office was inundated with people asking about whether election fraud, such as it was in the United States, could be happening in Australia. The problem is not whether election fraud is happening; the problem is that people think it is happening. Confidence in election outcomes is central to democracy.

The restrictions around COVID have people at boiling point. Small business closures, job losses, high-handed bureaucrats and politics have reduced many people to desperation. The next election will be a powder keg. It is essential to ensure that, whatever the result, the public can accept it and move on. Suspicion of the outcome can be easily fuelled and turned into violence by those who seek to manipulate the result for their own ends. We cannot let this happen. It is for this reason that New South Wales and Western Australia have provisions in their electoral acts to audit state elections.

New South Wales conducts an audit before each election to ensure systems are fit for purpose and then audits again after each election to ensure integrity and to see what can be improved for next time. Western Australia audits after every election.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 does not have audit provisions. In February, I started asking questions of the Australian Electoral Commission, the AEC. To be honest, I expected to hear that auditing was under control given the reputation the Australian Electoral Commission claims it has. That’s not what I found. The Australian Electoral Commission told me in Senate estimates that the Australian Signals Directorate had conducted an audit of the Australian Electoral Commission’s software. The next day in Senate estimates I asked the Australian Signals Directorate if they had done that audit and the answer was a clear no. The Australian Electoral Commission tried to conflate the security audit conducted by the Australian Signals Directorate with an audit of software and systems to pretend our software was being audited and, by extension, was fit for purpose. It has not been audited. The election software is not fit for purpose.

So why did the Australian Electoral Commission make a false statement or imply a false statement? The Australian Signals Directorate looked at potential intrusions into the system, both electronic and physical. Following the audit, the Australian Signals Directorate proceeded with an uplift program designed to harden the AEC network. I call that a fail. If your systems were audited for cybersecurity and the outcome was a comprehensive uplift program to improve your security then clearly the system failed the audit. What else would fail an audit at the Australian Electoral Commission?

In the May Senate estimates I asked the Australian Electoral Commission simple questions. When did the Australian Signals Directorate audit happen? The Australian Electoral Commission declined to answer. What was actually audited? The Australian Electoral Commission gave no useful response. What was the result of the audit? The Australian Electoral Commission declined to answer. What changes to the Australian Electoral Commission’s systems have been made in the uplift program? The Australian Electoral Commission declined to answer. Could the Australian Electoral Commission guarantee that the uplift program would render the Australian Electoral Commission computer system fit for purpose? The Australian Electoral Commission responded that nobody could ever guarantee their systems are fit for purpose. Let that sink in. Nobody could ever guarantee their systems are fit for purpose—the Australian Electoral Commission admitted it.

It is disturbing that such an audit could happen behind closed doors without direction or without structure. It is more disturbing still that this program has no legal basis in the Australian Commonwealth Electoral Act. We should not have to rely on the admirable conscientiousness of the Australian Signals Directorate. We should be able to rely on the completeness of our legislation. We need it fixed. It must be fixed.

Then I looked at other issues around election integrity. First up was a simple question: is the electronic data file containing each vote ever compared back to the paper ballot after the vote has been adjudicated? That answer is no. At no time is the electronic record of a vote checked back against the paper ballot. Senator Birmingham and the Australian Electoral Commission have assured us that there is a check, yet when we peer through the veil of language deliberately calculated to obfuscate no such check is happening, contrary to the minister’s response. The only time this happens is when a ballot is disputed and a paper ballot is pulled out for scrutiny. After the ballot is adjudicated, there is no further check.

These votes are sitting for up to a month in a system that failed an Australian Signals Directorate security test. Data integrity requires that a final audit be conducted immediately before declaration of the poll by pulling paper ballots out at random and comparing them back to the electronic record and vice versa. It’s one day’s work for all the counting staff as they finish their regular counting. It will not delay the result. It will guarantee that the system has not been compromised accidentally or by a malicious party.

My second question was on the accuracy of the voter rolls. The Australian Electoral Commission used to check the accuracy of their rolls by conducting residency checks.

Before this system was discontinued in 1995, those checks revealed a significant number of false registrations: people who had left the country, people who had died and people who had moved. Most of the incidences of multiple voting stem from voting in their old location and their new location: double voting. This legislation does not address that problem. How can anyone say that the voter roll is accurate if they never check it?

My third question is on the software algorithm at the Senate scanning centre that allocates preferences. The Australian Electoral Commission publishes what is basically a data dump of the raw vote count. Leading cryptographers, led by Dr Vanessa Teague, from the Australian National University, have written a check routine to test the preference flow against the published result. Their finding was that the Senate preference flow was correct, so we know this this aspect of the Australian Electoral Commission software works. Why it is up to the university academics to write complicated software at their own expense and on their own time to audit our elections? Since when did the government decide to crowdsource its job? So, what next? A GoFundMe page to pay for it?

This is why next week I will introduce into the Senate the Commonwealth electoral amendment (integrity of elections) bill 2021. This bill requires a preaudit of the Australian Electoral Commission systems prior to each election to ensure the systems are fit for purpose. It requires an audit after the election, as New South Wales and Western Australia require and as the ACT proposes. We propose an audit of the electoral roll and voter ID: voter identification. In short, this bill will audit the elections and the voter. Then we will all have confidence in the next election result.

After decades of this Lib-Lab parliament, people are starting to see how parliament is failing our country. The Lib-Lab duopoly, though, is desperate to continue its hold on a parliament that has a record of decades of not serving the people of Australia. We, though, are keen to restore parliamentary democracy. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation.

I asked the AEC about the new software they used for counting votes. Concerns have been raised about previous AEC software by cryptologists and the National Audit Office.

The AEC claims to have written new software that fixes all of these problems, but they won’t tell us who audited it and what the results were. An open and transparent audit is absolutely necessary to ensure there is 100% confidence in our elections.

Transcript

Thank you, Miss Jay.

Thanks Senator Sullivan, Senator Roberts.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. And thank you for appearing today. My questions apart from the first and third, fairly brief. So the first one, in reference to testimony at the last estimates, and I’ve I’ve got copies of your questions on that, responses to your questions and that is. The AEC bought but did not use the Scytl software. Rather you write your own. To write your own election software is a really impressive feat. We’ve been talking to people, they’re very impressed. May I ask how many staff are on the development team please?

I’d have to take that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. What was the total cost of doing that?

I’d have to take that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. What testing did you use before deployment now I’d imagine some kind of parallel running or some form of a dry run.

Well, in fact, we did multiple forms of testing and assurance Senator, as I’m sure you would as I’m sure you’d be aware. And look Senator, to be abundantly helpful here, we’re happy to provide you a more detailed personal briefing on this. I’m happy to talk to you about it. It is a complex process. As you’re aware, we’ve been using our audit, our checked software, easy CAAT for a number of years and we’ve redeveloped that that’s effectively what we deployed as part of the 2016 solution. As I think we said last time, the Siedel solution, we got Seidel on board as really as a business assurance process to make sure that we had software that was going to work at 12 week period to deliver it. The software we’re using has been checked, double-checked and assured. And not only that, the important point to note it’s totally in line with the existing legislation and all of the data that we then generate from that software is put online and the results are then replicated by a number of psephologists and political science departments who use that data to replicate the count. And it exactly matches the outcome of their own. So there’s a range of different ways of assuring that this software is fit for purpose.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, thank you. Still part of the first question. Were any of the staff involved doctorate or masters degree qualified in a suitable discipline such as mathematics or cryptology?

Senator I’d have to take that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Could we get their names please? When you provide it a notice?

No.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. And how long did it take?

We had for the 2016 process we had that 12 week periods in Israel, as I’ve said previously.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah. And can you provide their qualifications?

Senator again, if you can help me here on letting me know where you’re trying to head, maybe I can provide some more fulsome answers.

[Malcolm Roberts] Perhaps we can, we can go into that in the briefing. I’d love to take you up on that. So did your bespoke solution use any code from Scytl and if so, what percentage?

It did not.

[Malcolm Roberts] None at all. Great. Your software, you intimated has been audited in accordance with standards published by the National Association of Testing Authorities, NADA. That certification does not specify a standard for the auditing of election software. It’s more of a general process for an audit to follow, as I understand it. Having the audit is not a guarantee that your software works within acceptable accuracy levels. Although these issues may come out in an audit who conducted the audit and how much did it cost and what was the result?

Senator as I’ve just said, if you can help me here by telling me where you’re trying to head with this process I would get some of these questions. If somehow the results of this were somehow secret or behind closed doors. We use a piece of software that’s been tested and assured on multiple occasions. The same time, all of the data that this software produces is then publicly published on our virtual teller even on our website, which on election day, as one of the most used pages in Australia, that data is then used by a variety of psephologists and computer and political science experts to replicate those results. It’s intensely public. If you’re trying to indicate that there’s some sort of issue, I just don’t understand why you’d be doing that when there’s been no evidence of that at all.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, we were just concerned about the auditing. That’s all. Because we got some answers from the, I think it was a Nao that didn’t give us the assurance. So let’s go onto some of the physical things then of the 511 polling places in the last election. How many of those had computers or other devices that communicated with the AEC computer system or were capable of doing so?

Senator I’m Jeff Pope, deputy electoral commissioner. I’m not sure what you’re referring to with 511 polling places we had nearly 8,000.

[Malcolm Roberts] Could that be state?

Perhaps you might be referring to–

[Malcolm Roberts] While it is not a mandatory requirement for pre-poll voting centres at the 2019 federal election. 115 of the 511 people voting centres. So pre-poll, sorry, pre-poll. My mistake.

[Man] Right.

[Malcolm Roberts] Had me worried there.

You had me worried.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, just how many have got a physical connection? How many had a physical connection?

For what purpose, Senator?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, I’m going to go into that in the next few questions.

Many in terms of the role. And–

There are, we have electronic certified lists in every I think in every one of those pre-poll centres last event where citizens names and marked off the roll.

[Malcolm Roberts] No, it’s beyond that. I note from your answer on questions on notice F-O six five on polling place security, that those electronic devices were protected by monitored back to base alarm in only 115 of the 511 polling places. Were any other measures in place to protect the cyber integrity of those devices during the election period? For example were they air gaped, were they turned off at night, was there IP traffic monitoring for the period when they should have been none because they were turned off? That’s what we’re after.

I think all of your thoughts–

[Malcolm Roberts] You think?–

So we’ll take it on notice. But again, we’ve had no issue with any breach of our software or our hardware, with respect to delivery of the election–

At all, and no indicator of any breach and our handling of all of that data. And the physical equipment was in line with relevant Commonwealth guidelines and regulations and the risk assessment that we undertook.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. I’m just doing my job on behalf of my constituents.

I get it Senator. And I’m doing my job.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes.

On also defending one of the world’s best and most transparent electoral systems.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well I’m not attacking it. I’m just making sure that–

Fantastic. And so we’re both doing our jobs in terms of making sure that citizens have the information they need to form their judgements.

[Malcolm Roberts] Correct. I’ve only got three questions to go. In your response to questions on notice F-0 six eight, you make the comment, ” All preferences and all Senate ballot papers are reviewed by at least one person at the scanning side.” Does that mean that they compare the scanned ballot with the paper ballot to ensure accuracy? Because that’s the impression your answer gives. Do they compare the actual scanned ballot with the paper ballot?

Senator the process is that a data is both manually entered and scanned and then that’s matched with the automated process–

[Malcolm Roberts] All the ballot papers are manually entered?

Manually entered but all paper is scanned when it first arrives. Then from that image which is an image that data is then entered. And then the scan, the data from the scan is then compared with that to make sure that they match. Where they don’t match, we undertake further processes.

[Malcolm Roberts] Could you explain that in terms of, we have a physical paper ballot that is scanned in–

[Man] Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts] And then–

And then it captures an image.

[Malcolm Roberts] Right. And then what is compared with that image?

That image is then presented to the Data Entry Operator who enters the data from that image–

[Malcolm Roberts] From the image–

Right.

[Malcolm Roberts] So he or she enters it physically.

Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts] So that’s the manual part.

That’s the manual part, then at the same time the data capture process as part of capturing the image is then compared with that manual process. Where that matches, that’s taken to be an accurate match. And that’s included in the count. Where it doesn’t match, we undertake further processes.

[Malcolm Roberts] So that last estimates in October, I asked what percentage of computer records that checked back against the paper record. And you took that on notice, your lengthy answer failed to provide a figure. Is that because it’s a hundred percent?

Which was the question Senator?

[Malcolm Roberts] I asked what percentage of computer records are checked back against the paper record? And you took that a notice, your lengthy answer, which is I think F-068. Hang on, it might be zero eight four. Sorry, zero eight, four. So, as I was saying your lengthy answer failed to provide a figure. Counting ballots is a quantitative exercise. So everything comes down to figures. What percentage of electronic voting cards are compared back to the ballot paper and what is the variance?

I wonder whether we’re talking about different things here, Senator. The process that I’ve just been through demonstrates that every single paper.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you.

Yep.

[Malcolm Roberts] Last question . On this topic, anyway. Has the AEC ever run a test batch of a few thousand ballot papers through your system then run those same ballots through a second time and compared the result? Surely any variance between these two runs would give you a figure for system accuracy.

Again, Senator I’d rely on what I’ve just said before that the process that we’re running involves a full manual entry of every single ballot paper compared then to the scanning, capture of the scanned data. So we’re doing that in any case.

[Malcolm Roberts] That that’s what I thought. Okay. Just a final question. Just to lose question. I was thinking as, the senators were asking questions. Voters tell us quite often that they’re then not in favour of being assaulted by a number of how to vote cards distributors being volunteers, distributing how to vote cards when they’re entering a polling booth and some of the premises managers getting to have a bit of strife with it too. I don’t know. I haven’t read the act that covers this, but would there be any possibility or any consideration given to putting the, how to vote cards in the booth or is that fundamentally flawed?

Absolutely not Senator yet. I know what you’re saying that occasionally people do so that. What I’d say in defensive 99.9% of all of the party workers is most people strive to do the right thing.

[Man] Yeah.

We have a few over-excited individuals that really like to get those how to vote cards in the hands of voters. And that can cause some offence but most people do the right thing. We would never put a how to votes in the polling place, because then get confused and think we’re endorsing a particular process and it creates grief.

[Malcolm Roberts] What about if everyone was in there? Every party.

Same thing people then get confused and I’d be absolutely–

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s a fair comment. So if someone’s handing it they can stop them and ask questions about it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Senator Roberts.