Hanson a victim of fraud. Yet NSW EC continues to deny access to BTL vote data

Pauline Hanson vote challenge has been derailed with evidence lead in court that the allegation of missing votes was fraudulent.  (ABC News).  Mr. Sean Castle, the man behind the fraudulent allegations is likely to face court costs associated with Hanson challenge after he admitted to faking the allegations but will escape public prosecution in return for goving evidence..

"Mr Castle, a father of three, was granted protection from prosecution before being compelled to answer questions relating to the purported Electoral Commission email.

Under questioning, he said "he had never received any email from the commission and that he had created it himself". He also admitted he has never known anyone who has worked for the Electoral Commission."


Notwithstanding Hanson's case the NSW Electoral commission still has failed to publish details of the Below-the-line election results which continue to bring the NSW EC into disrepute

Julia Gillard preferred prime minister

Source:p Essential Report.

Better Prime Minister

Q. Who do you think would make the better Prime Minister out of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott?

	5 Jul 2010	17 Jan 2011	14 Feb	14 Mar	11 Apr	9 May	14 June
Julia Gillard	53%	47%	48%	44%	42%	43%	41%
Tony Abbott	26%	32%	31%	33%	33%	35%	36%
Don’t know	21%	21%	20%	23%	24%	22%	24%

41% believe Julia Gillard would make the better Prime Minister and 36% prefer Tony Abbott

Pauline Hanson: Source of allegations of 'Dodgy vote counting' by NSW Electoral Commission confronts court

Not to be denied the thrills and spill, a man who claims he is the source of allegations made against NSW Electoral Commission has fronted court to give evidence. The man whose real name is Sean Castle used a pseudonym ‘Michael Rattner’. when he first contacted Pauline Hanson with revelations of a 1,200 vote discrepancy in the NSW election count. It was claimed that the staff had miscounted the votes that should have been allocated to Pauline Hanson instead they were discarded as informal.

The allegation of "dodgy vote counting" comes on the back of the NSW Electoral Commission's refusal to publish the detailed below-the-line preference computer data-files which were used to tabulate the results of the March election.  Without access to this data it is impossible to verify the correctness and validity of the election count.

Public elections MUST be open and transparent if public confidence is to be maintained in the electoral process.  The failure of the NSW election commission to publish this data has and continues to bring the Commission into disrepute and leave then open to allegations of corruption.

The NSW Court case has been adjourned until next week

Missing witness, missing votes and missing data - Please explain?

Missing Witness

Pauline Hanson's court case has suffered a set back as her star witness to allegations of corruption and dodgy electoral practices against the NSW Electoral Commission failed to show up in court.

Missing Votes

Pauline Hanson is challenging the integrity and results of the 2011 NSW State election in which Ian Brightwell has been implicated in claims that he had sent out a eMail alleging that 1,200 votes for Ms Hanson had been miscounted..

Missing Data

Could Ian Brightwell, please explain why the NSW EC has refused to publish details of the below-the-line preference data files that were used to determine the results of the NSW State upper house election?  This information should have been publicly available and subject to scrutiny?  The detailed preference file for the NSW Senate election have been published why not the State?  Without access to this data it is impossible to verify the integrity of the computer count.

The conduct of public elections must be open and transparent. The results of the NSW Election most certainly is not open or transparent. Why has the Commission refused to published the data file and subject it to public scrutiny? What does the NSW Electoral Commission have to hide?

Corruption Allegations Against NSW Electoral Commission

Pauline Hanson, Former leader of One Nation, has alleged that she was denied election at the 2011 NSW State election as a result of corruption in the way the count has been counted.  This raises serious concern about the conduct of the election itself and the ability of its Chief Commissioner Colin Barry.  The NSW Commission has also come under criticism for failing to publish the detailed results of the election.  It is crucial that elections are open and transparent in order to maintain public confidence.  Colin Barry's has failed in both accounts.  Elections in Australia are no longer open or transparent. The commission's refusal to release detailed elections results only undermines public confidence even further.  Colin Barry';s approach is to deny access to crucial evidence and information.  This is not the way to proceed.  The NSW State government must insist in a full independent audit of the commissions management and practices.  If Colin Barry is unable or unwilling to ensure that elections are open and transparent then he should resign or be dismissed.

Commission seeks to deny public access to detailed results: More questions raised about NSW Electoral Software

The NSW Electoral Commission has once again gone to extraordinary steps to try and avoid disclosure of detailed election results racing ongoing concerns as to the design, structure and certification of the NSW Electoral Commission's software


In what is seen a further example of misuse and abuse of process the Commission falsely claims that copies of the below the line preference data files used to tabulate and calculate the results of the State election can not be made available.  The Commission claims that in order to do so they would need to write a program to extract the data.

This has raised a number of questions as to the design structure and security of the software deployed by the commission.  Presumably the information is stored in a commonly used database storage format such as Microsoft access, SQL, MSSQL or similar.  Any computer person who is familiar with the data structure should be able to write SQL query to extract the data within 5-10 mins.  Bare in mind that the NSW Electoral Commission has an "qualified" IT team, one finds it extremely difficult to believe that the Commission is unable or unwilling to responded to the formal FOI request in good faith.

The request made to the Commission had requested that the FOI application fee be waived as the information sought is in the public interest.

Given the extraordinary effort made by the commission to avoid disclosure we wonder exactly what is it they are seeking to hide and prevent being made public?  Perhaps this is an issue that the NSW Corruption Commission or the Auditor General should investigate.


Public elections MUST be open and transparent, the information sought is readily available from all other Australian electoral commissions that data-entry preference data.  Why not NSW?

Collin Barry's Secret Ballot: Blackjack with the cards faced down

NSW Election Commissioner, Colin Barry's refusal to publish the detailed results of the NSW state election upper house ballot is akin to a blackjack dealer dealing a deck of cards face down and then declaring the results without showing the cards.

What is it he has to hide.  Why has he refused to published the ballot election data files?

Colin Barry's actions continue to bring the conduct of the 2011 NSW State election into disrepute and open to allegations of fraud and corruption.

Elections conducted by computers counts are no longer open and transparent,  Publication of the data file should be undertaken progressively during the count as was the case during the 2008 Melbourne City Council Election.