MORE than 6000 Wagga residents have been issued fines for not voting in the recent council election, including some who were wrongly booked despite lodging the correct paperwork.
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The NSW Electoral Commission has conceded the manual processing of voter turnout could have led to mistakes, but stressed this didn’t influence the outcome of the election.
The son and mother of Wagga woman Megan Muir were issued the $55 fines despite Mrs Muir filling out their exemption forms before the election.
“I voted at Tolland Primary School and while I was there I filled out the declaration ... my mother was in Spain and my son was in Canberra,” Mrs Muir said.
Last week Mrs Muir received the infringement notices for the pair and contacted the Electoral Commission to query the fines.
“They just said to me ‘Oh, obviously the declarations didn’t come in from the polling booth’.”
“They have said to me just to fill in the (excuse) form (supplied with the fine) and post it back and it won’t be a problem.”
A number of people in Tumut also said they received fines despite voting on election day and having their name crossed off the list.
This even included the manager of the Talbingo polling place, Amanda Hobson.
A spokesman for the Electoral Commission yesterday acknowledged there could be human error in the process.
“We understand that if someone has voted, or feels they have voted, that sets of all sorts of alarms,” the spokesman said.
“Sometimes the wrong name is marked off, or the one above or below is. It’s a manual process that is done on the day sometimes under pressure.”
The infringement notice provides four options: pay the fine, provide a reasonable excuse for not voting, state where you did vote, or have the matter dealt with by court.
The commission stressed the forms are a legal statutory declaration. The ballot papers lodged by voters were tallied separately to voter turnout, so provided the ballot sheet was placed in the correct box the vote was still counted even if the participation wasn’t.
Voter turnout for Wagga at the recent local government election was the lowest in more than a decade, with 82 per cent of people participating.
This compares to 85 per cent in 2008 and 86 per cent in 2004.
The 6000 fines equate to possible revenue of $330,000.
