Talk:Blundell v Vardon

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This article needs further information on its subsequent consideration to improve the quality of the article. This would include

• the meaning of "affected the outcome of the election"
• "Directly chosen by the people" - see Rowe v Electoral Commissioner
• Consequences of a void election - see Sue v Hill, Re Wood and Re Culleton [No 2]
• Mandamus against a governor - see Leeming, M. "Judicial Review of Vice-Regal Decisions: South Australia v O'Shea, its Precursors and its Progeny" (PDF). (2015) 36 Adelaide Law Review 1.

Find bruce (talk) 23:09, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Precise voting rules

As there were three Senators to be elected, each voter was required to mark three candidates,

Was it actually compulsory for a ballot paper to have marks for three candidates to be counted or could a voter vote for just one or two candidates if they wished?

Also there's talk of presiding officers initialling votes but it's not clear what this refers to - some process in the polling station to make a ballot paper valid, some counting procedure or what? Timrollpickering 16:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

In terms of the facts, the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902 (Cth) provided :

• s134 No ballot-paper shall be delivered to any voter without being first initialed by the presiding officer, and an exact account shall be kept of all initialed ballot-papers. The initials of the presiding officer shall be placed on the back of the ballot-paper in such a position as to be easily seen when the ballot-paper is folded so as to conceal the names of the candidates.
• 147. Upon receipt. of the ballot-paper the voter shall without delay-

(a) Retire alone to some unoccupied compartment of the booth, and there, in private, mark his vote on the ballot-paper in the manner hereafter described:

(b) Fold the ballot-paper so as to conceal the names of the candidates and to clearly show the initials of the presiding officer, and exhibit it so folded to the presiding officer, and then forthwith openly, and without unfolding it, deposit it in the ballot-box:

• s150 In elections for the Senate the voter shall mark his ballotpaper by making a cross in the square opposite the name of each candidate for whom he votes. The voter shall vote for the full number of candidates to be elected.
• 158. A ballot-paper shall be informal if-

(a) It is not duly initialed by the presiding officer; or

(b) In elections for the Senate it has (not being a postal ballotpaper) no cross in the square opposite the name of any candidate or has crosses in squares opposite the names of a greater or less number of candidates than the number required to be elected or being a postal ballotpaper it has no names written on it or has a greater or less number of names written on it than there are candidates required to be elected

So the answer to your first question is clear - a vote for just 1 or 2 candidates was informal. The second question is more difficult - I am not aware of any authority that discusses why the ballots had to be initialed. I understand the initialing is intended to protect the integrity of the ballot - in a secret ballot you can't number the ballot papers. By putting the initial on the back, the vote could be accepted or rejected without regard to who the vote was for. For the same reason you can't make any mark on the ballot paper after the voter has put it on the box. But that's just my understanding. Include it in the article would need a reliable source. If you want to go looking, I would suggest the Parliament website would be a good place to start. It may have been discussed during the debates or otherwise it might be covered in a parliamentary paper. Antony Green would be another good place to look Find bruce (talk) 20:24, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

I'd guess the initialling was a 1900s version of validating a ballot paper to make it harder to cast fake votes. Around the world there's a history of all kinds of special stamps, holepunches, watermarks, symbols, individual numbers (they can and are used in places albeit with a seal chain back to the individual voter which only a court order can open) and even issuing officers signing the papers (rather easier in a small organisation poll than in a large public vote) to validate the vote - and frustratingly a load of disputed elections that have ultimately turned on the failure of some polling staff to carry out the correct validation procedure. Timrollpickering 19:59, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Nothing historic about it - while s209A of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 provides for an official mark, s215 still requires every ballot paper to be initialed. As for the frustration, you might be interested in the decision of Isaacs J in Kean v Kerby (1920) 27 CLR 449 where he vents at the "almost incredible carelessness" on the part of more than 20 local Presiding Officers who had certified that the voter had signed the declaration before him in circumstances where the voter had not signed the declaration at all. Find bruce (talk) 01:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)