Five booths out of papers, voters turned away

AT LEAST five polling booths in the electorate of Bass, where the State’s second closest count is now in progress, ran out of voting slips on election day.

With just 225 votes separating the main combatants, Jordan Crugnale (Labor) on 15,968 (50.35%) and Aaron Brown (Liberals) on 15,743 (49.65%), after minor alterations to the Saturday night count  on Sunday, November 27, the incidents could prove crucial.

There are still as many as 10,000 votes to be counted, meaning the result is far from clear.

Political scrutineers have reported to the ‘Sentinel-Times’ that the Victorian Electoral Commission failed to supply enough voting papers in the burgeoning seaside town of Corinella on election day, Saturday, November 26.

The Bass Hall was another place that ran out.

And the VEC may have under-supplied voting papers at four or five other polling places in the electorate of Bass including at Newhaven, Bayles, Catani and Grantville.

Corinella resident, Mark Holmes, confirmed the problem at Corinella.

“They ran out of voting papers at about 3pm, there were some more delivered just before 5pm but by that stage, some people had left, and others were getting a bit agitated in the line,” Mr Holmes said.

“Unfortunately, the electoral staff copped a bit of abuse,” he said.

“They told some people to come back later but whether they did or not, I don’t know.

“There was still a fair few people lined up at 6pm and they herded everyone inside at that point but some came later and missed out on voting altogether. It was an absolute shemozzle.

“The booth was hopelessly understaffed on the day, making people wait for well over an hour at some stages.”

The VEC has confirmed that booths in Bass ran out of voting papers.

“We are aware of a limited number of voting centres, including some in Bass District, that ran out of printed district ballot papers yesterday,” said a spokesperson for the VEC.

“Replacement ballot papers were provided to each voting centre. In the interim, voters were provided with blank ballots, with candidates’ names handwritten on the ballot. This is an acceptable approach in this situation.”

Supplying blank papers for people to vote on was not the experience of people caught up in the problems at Corinella.

While there were long queues at Corinella, associated with the understaffing and lack of ballot papers, it was an issue experienced by many across the region, including at Lang Lang, where the line of voters snaked out of the polling booth by up to 100 metres at one stage.

Voters wondered what it might have been like on election day if more than 50 per cent of voters hadn’t voted “early” in the two weeks leading up to election day.

A friend of one of the Bass candidates, who asked to remain anonymous at this stage, said there should be an investigation to determine how many voters were turned away from Corinella and other booths in Bass, due to a lack of voting papers.

“When you are talking about a result decided by 200 votes, possibly a lot less than that by the time the outcome is known, you’ve got a serious problem. It’s an absolute disgrace.

"They should have twice as many ballot papers as they need. They should never run out.

“This is the mob that lost 9000 postal ballot packs in the local government elections in South Gippsland a couple of years ago. You’ve got to ask if the VEC is up to running a state election and on the basis of what happened on Saturday, you’d have to say 'no'.”

Another issue which annoyed voters in Wonthaggi was shifting Saturday's election day voting away from the Senior Citizens Centre, where "early voting" had been staged and where countless other elections have been held, for the new senior secondary college campus in McKenzie Street.

One elderly lady who lives in Merrin Crescent Wonthaggi, just around the corner from the senior secondary college, struggled up to the Senior Cits to vote, only to find she had to turn around and go back to McKenzie Street. Others didn't know where the new college was located and simply went to Wonthaggi North Primary School where many then queued to vote.

The controversy in Bass will not impact the overall result. The ABC is now giving 51 seats in the 88-seat parliament to Daniel Andrews' Labor Party, 25 Coalition, four Green and eight in doubt.

The counting of votes will continue on Monday in Bass, one of eight Victorian electorates still officially “in doubt” but presently by the second-closest margin of 225 votes as compared to 470 votes in Hastings where Strictly Ballroom star Paul Mercurio (Labor) is leading by that margin and in Mornington where the Liberals’ Chris Crewther is leading by just 177 votes, the tightest contest at this stage.