The federal government could look to bring voter identification in across the nation, just as Queensland seeks to strike it from its books. The state Labor government hopes to remove the requirement for identification at polling booths as one of its first acts, as well as lower the donation declaration threshold back to $1000, from the federal indexed rate of $12,800. While most submissions to the parliamentary committee reviewing the state government’s legislation agree on lowering the declaration threshold, support for removing the need for voter ID has been mixed.
The LNP, which introduced the measure, argued there were no “countervailing issues” to necessitate the removal of the legislation, while others, such as University of Queensland Professor and electoral law expert Graeme Orr, submitted there was no prevailing evidence the laws were needed in the first place.
“There is sporadic evidence of possible multiple voting in Australia, but not at a level to raise systemic concern; in any event, voter ID is no cure for that,” Professor Orr wrote in his submission to the committee.
“Only real-time rolls can address that. There are real integrity concerns in electoral law: misleading campaigning, donations, the numbers not enrolling and voting, and open-slather postal voting (fraud has been an issue in postal voting, plus it cannot guarantee the secrecy of the ballot).
Full Article: Commonwealth considers voter ID as Queensland looks to dump it.