Australia's missing votes

Australia has a large migrant population

By Angie Knox in Sydney

As the countdown begins for Saturday's elections in Australia the outcome is poised on a knife-edge.

Labor needs a swing of less than 1% nationwide to win victory from the governing centre-right coalition of the Liberal and National parties.

Most opinion polls show the two main contenders running neck-and-neck.

Every vote counts - but thousands of votes are likely to be discounted as spoiled ballots.

At the last election in 1998, the informal vote - as spoiled ballots are called - averaged nearly 4% across the country.

Election fact

Voting is compulsory in Australia

But it was much higher in electoral divisions with large numbers of immigrants. The biggest informal vote - 7.1% - was in the western Sydney division of Reid, an area with large Asian and Middle Eastern communities.

More than 40% of the population is a first or second generation migrant, and around 15% speak a language other than English at home.

Language difficulties and complex ballot papers are the main reasons for spoiled votes, according to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), the non-partisan body charged with running all elections.

Complex ballot

On Saturday, voters will be choosing representatives for 150 seats in the House of Representatives, and for half of the Senate's 76 seats.

If a voter ticks a box rather than numbering it, misses out a box or duplicates a number, then the ballot paper cannot be counted

Part of the AEC's job is to provide information for voters. It has education centres in four major cities, and operates telephone help-lines in 16 different languages.

It has also been organising how-to-vote seminars for schools and community groups.

"The main problem we have is that there are different voting systems that operate," says AEC education officer Peita Mamo. "For the federal election you've got a full preferential system - so voters need to number every box.

"And for the state election, in New South Wales, you can only number one box.

"And then you've got the senate ballot paper which is so long and can be so confusing for people."

Strict rules

Australia's complicated preferential voting system makes filling out a ballot paper a challenging task. Voters have to number in order of preference as many as 19 candidates for one seat in the House of Representatives.

The battleground

18 marginal seats held by the ruling coalition

9 marginal seats held by Labor

Labor needs net gain of six seats to win outright

And the senate ballot paper is literally one-metre wide to accommodate the list of 60 or 70 candidates. Luckily, voters can choose to vote for a single group of candidates rather than numbering every individual in order of preference.

There are strict rules about what counts as a valid vote. If a voter ticks a box rather than numbering it, misses out a box or duplicates a number, then the ballot paper cannot be counted.

To try and limit the number of spoiled votes, the AEC's Peita Mamo says translators will be on hand to help voters at some polling places, and there will be videos in different languages to explain how to fill in ballot papers accurately.

But at a how-to-vote session for elderly Chinese-Australian voters in Sydney's Chinatown, participants said what they really wanted was information in Chinese on the parliamentary candidates.

"I don't have a problem with filling out the ballot paper," said one man. "But if you can give a very brief description of each candidate, and publish it in the Chinese language newspapers, I think people will find it easier to cast their votes."

But Ms Mamo said the AEC could not help with that.

"It's hard because we're the ones seen as running the elections, so we should know everything," she says. "But we really have to stay apolitical.

"So we can provide people with contact details on how to get in touch with candidates, but we can't provide information on how they're politically aligned."

Community groups tend not to invite candidates from the main parties to address their members because they try to be non-political and non-religious.

"That's a bit difficult," says Peter Wong of the Australia-Chinese Association. "If we only invite a few candidates, then other candidates may accuse us of political bias."