Facts suppressed by the ABC

The following facts  surrounding the 2006 State Election have been suppressed by the ABC's Electoral Analyst, Antony Green.


WESTERN METRO

In 2006 the Greens won Western Metro after a recount.

FACT: 500 votes went missing and unaccounted for between Count A and Count B. Either the VEC double counted in count A or votes were removed. the total number of votes between count A and count B should never change. The Greens won on the second recount by less than 150 votes.

FACT: When the Parliament requested copies of the Count A preference data files for comparison, the VEC claimed that the data had been deleted and overwritten. The equivent of an electronic whiteboard.

FACT: No backup copies were made. This is hard to believe for a professional organisation were this information costs millions of dollars to collate. No audit trail of Count A in comparison to Count B exists.

FACT: The AEC maintain copies of both Count A and Count B data comparison. What benefit was there in the VEC duplicating the development of software to count the vote when the AEC already had a better version which could have been used free of cost? Millions of dollars wasted in duplicated software resources.


NORTHERN METRO

FACT: The VEC's lack of due diligence resulted in dodgy data being feed into their computerised count.

FACT: There was no check or verification to ensure that the number of votes recorded reconciled with the number of ballot papers issued prior to the calculation of the election results. We are told that the VEC this election will produce a reconciliation report prior to the count. The VEC has not provide a sample copy of what this report will look like and what information it will contain.

FACT: In 2006 the VEC failed to provided copies of the preference data files to scrutineers. This information was only made available following an FOI application, even then they only provided information related to the final count not the preliminary counts. Data files had been overwritten without backup copies being made. Even though copies of this information had been requested prior to the commencement of the count and the Electoral Act requires the VEc to maintain all election material and documentation realted to the conduct of the election.

FACT: The State elections cost Victoria over 50 million dollars, costs in duplicating resources that the AEC already provide. Hopefully we will not see a repeat of the mistakes that were made in 2006.