Minister Cormann refuses to answer questions regarding the security of the postal ballot
by Lex Stewart, President of Vote Australia
Possibly, Yes. Massive frauds cannot be ruled out yet.
It might be that the officers of the ABS (with staff seconded from the AEC) have conducted the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey in an honest and accurate manner, so that the Australian public can trust the result.
However it is also possible that massive frauds have been conducted, and that the true result could have been 60% no, and 40% yes.
We do not yet have sufficient information to rule out the possibility that the AMLPS result was massively frauded.
Over the period 26 September to 8 November I asked about 30 questions of the ABS and of the Minister Cormann.
In the absence of answers at this stage, it is impossible to verify the accuracy and integrity of what happened in the AMLPS.
I say this from my perspectives both as President of Vote Australia, and as a Consultant Engineer who does Audits of factories and farms for Workplace Health and Safety and for Food Safety, issuing ‘HACCP’ compliance certificates.
It is almost meaningless if I inspect a factory and find that the food being produced is free of contamination, or that nobody was killed or injured on that day.
It is not just what happens when I am present in a factory or farm that matters. There needs to be in place a robust “quality assurance” program, with transparency and accountability.
Before I can issue a compliance certificate, I need to check the management, methods, training, etc to make sure that hazards have been assessed and that procedures are in place to ensure food safety or human safety for the other 364 days of the year.
The lack of evidence of a robust “quality assurance” program and procedures in the ABS is alarming.
Based on the somewhat limited information to hand so far:
- Website www.abs.gov.au, notably the two sections with titles:- “Quality & Integrity Statement” and “External Observers”
- The “Fraud Control Plan and fraud control measures”and its related ‘comprehensive risk assessment’ mentioned on www.abs.gov.au have not been made public
- And this plan and assessment seem not to have been audited by independent experts
- Unsatisfactory answers by the ABS to some of my 9 questions of 26 September
- Lack of answers by the ABS to my questions numbered 10 to 22 of 7 and 8 November
- Lack of answers by the Minister’s office to my 8 questions numbered A to G
- Apparent anomalies in the mathematical patterns of votes
- The refusal by Protoviti, the auditor engaged by the ABS, to answer my questions
- The ABS not making public the Protoviti reports (likely they have done excellent work, but only within the scope of the ‘terms of reference’ set for them by the ABS)
- The strange phenomenon that Protoviti employees were forced to sign a “non-disclosure” agreement – the sort of thing only relevant to matters of defence and commercial competitiveness re tenders etc
- The lack of any publicly-available knowledge as to whether the ‘terms of reference’ (i.e. the scope of activities that Protoviti was asked to address) were adequate or had been set too restrictively by the ABS
- The inherent possibility that ABS computers could have been ‘hacked’ unless the “cyber security controls including extensive use of data encryption” were of a higher standard than that which normally prevails in Canberra public service agencies
it is not yet possible to discount the real possibility that massive frauds may have occurred, and that we cannot trust the result.
The ABS initially promised answers to my questions of 7 and 8 November “within 48 hours”. Then on 13 November my telephone enquiries as to progress caused a telephone call from a senior ABS manager who said that replies should occur “within another week or so”.
From my 23 years experience in the NSW and Commonwealth Public Services, including having worked for 6 MPs, including a Minister and a Senator, I am aware of the convention that Ministerial correspondence has a normal turnaround of 3 weeks. Therefore, my enquiries of 8 November should normally have received a reply or an interim acknowledgment from Minister Cormann’s office by 29 November.
In September, I telephoned the ABS asking about scrutineering of the AMPLS, and received an emphatic rebuff, words to the effect of ‘this is a survey NOT an election, and, whereas the Commonwealth Electoral Act allows scrutineering, the ABS legislation relates to privacy.’
Why do we have Scrutineers in elections?
The AEC Scrutineers Handbook tells us:-
to “confirm the integrity of the election processes” to “observe every stage” “ensuring that Australia’s proud democratic tradition of transparent elections is maintained, [because] Transparency and integrity in the conduct of elections have, after all, been the hallmarks of Australia’s federal electoral system” (quote from page 3, emphasis added)
The word ‘Scrutineer’ occurs 94 times in the Commonwealth Electoral Act, and the word “scrutiny” occurs 155 times, so evidently these things are important in our democracy.
The ABS states on its website that
“The role of observers was different to that of a scrutineer in an election. As the survey was conducted under the authority of the Census and Statistics Act 1905, the rights and obligations of scrutineers under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984, or other legislation did not apply.”
The ABS is in effect boasting that it did not need to be as rigorous as that normal standard of transparency and accountability provided by scrutineers under the Electoral Act.
The ABS website does not fool me at all. Without fully adequate answers to my 30 questions, it will not be possible to be happy that the AMLPS result is reliable and that it was not affected by fraud.
Lex Stewart is President of Vote Australia, whose members have 25 years of expertise in elections and scrutineering.
Votes have been destroyed so as no one can recount and challenge the fraud
Yes I know there had to be other factors contributing to that low 33%, including Shortens unpopularity.
But how much can you trust the regular SSM approval polls ??
Surely there would have to be many saying yes to those polls, simply because they dont want to attract any trouble for themselves further down the track, from people who have their name & number.
One aspect of the survey result, to me, looked very suspicious…
The state by state totals. Nearly all of them conveniently hovering around the 60% mark.
I find it hard to believe that nearly every state, with their own different populations & issues, would have almost the exact same ratio of yes voters, keeping in mind, that most of the yes voters were NON gay hetros supporting the other side.
It would look a lot more realistic if say, one state has 60%, another 40%, 30%, 70%, etc.
Yes I know the breakdown of those state stats shows more variety, but hey, nearly all of them adding up to a neat & tidy 60% ???..Looks very scripted to me, scripted by people who didnt want any state to think they can get out of the (SSM) changes being planned for them.
Jonny, you’re jumping to unmerited conclusions here. There are very few one-issue voters, but you are seem to think that anyone in favour of SSM would have voted for the ALP at the 2016 election. Obviously, this was not the case, as polling numbers in favour of SSM before the election were way higher than 33% (you were actually pretty close on that figure) and the survey results also matched opinion recent poll results. There has been a majority in favour of SSM for a few years, and the survey was just the hard right kicking the can down the road in an attempt to delay the inevitable.
To be fair, some of them actually seem to have thought the No case would win, but only those who have existing form for being deluded, notably Senator Dogsex.
It is ok you are forgiven.Ed
Stalin said “It doesn’t count who is voting but who is counting”
Australians are petitioning to audit the vote.
Help us find out if they are pulling the wool over our eyes.
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Petitions/House_of_Representatives_Petitions/Petitions_General/Petitions_List?id=EN0426
Yes, I agreed with your comment. Are the ballot papers still intact in ABS secured place? If someone request for the Royal Commision to demand for the investigation of the possible frauds how can one goes about it?
Again, I made a mathmatical error in that response – can someone advise how to edit my comments on this site?
Sorry – I inadvertently Posted that before I finished and can’t find a way to edit it:
…. If you further take the assumption that 50% of the non-repondents would not have voted in a compulsory election and the other 50% were equally divided in the Yes and No Camps there would remain an outcome of 67% Vs 37% of the potential total expected respondents. Even if the Total of that half of the non-respondents all nswered No – the result would have been 62% Vs 48%. It really doesn’t matter which way you cut it, the Yes answer was the majority opinion.
Regardless, as I said before, a Survey only serves as a Guide to Public Opinion. The Bill still had to pass through the hurdles of both Houses of Parliament and the Governor General before it could become Law. That was the case with or without the Survey.
There can be no doubt that it did pass those hurdles. It can only be argued about what the extent of the effect of the survey was on that passing of the Legislation into Law. Given that there were only 4 MP’s who voted against the Legislation, it is more than likely the outcome would have passed, (though with lesser numbers perhaps), had there been no Survey.
Declare whatever you want Howard, your current declaration is nonsense. Any individual, Company, Local, State or Federal organisation, group or Government is perfectly entitled to conduct a survey. It is not compulsory for the respondents to take part. The result therefore is neither 100% accurate nor necessarily a complete assessment of the respondents to the survey. It is not a vote in the sense of a vote as occurs within the electoral process.
It’s purpose is only that of a guide to Public opinion of a narrow or broad spectrum of questions to a targetted group of respondents. The outcome is not binding on the entity that instigates the survey. In any event, it is not illegal, nor contingent upon the Constitution of Australia.
In the instance of the SSM Postal Survey there was a challenge in the High Court based on the Government’s right to spend such an amount of money without consultation and approval of the Parliament and the Senate. That challenge was overturned. Had it been illegal within the confines of the Constitution, the High Court woud have jumped to that provision over and above the expenditure challenge.
The turnout of an 80% return rate on a non-compulsory survey is astounding in comparison to the 90% return rate normally achieved in a compulsory General Election. There is no means by which it can be claimed that those who abstained were either for or against the question of SSM. The closest assumption that could be cast is that of neutrality – that is those respondents had no concern with the outcome being one way or the other. If you further take the assumption that 50% of those would not have cast a vote as is the norm in those non-respondents were evenly split in the Yes and No camps –
Where was the need for all the secrecy surrounding the vote counting ???
Was it something to do with protecting voters privacy ???
If all the vote papers have now been destroyed, where is the need for secrecy to continue???
What is it that they dont want the public, or anyone, to ever find out ???
Why should vote counters have something big they openly want to hide & keep hidden ???
Finally, someone who knows the ABS is talking about this.
When Bill Shorten promised he’d legalise SSM immediately if he gets elected (at the last fed election), he only got about 33% of the vote.
Yet with all the bad publicity the yes side got during the survey period, that 33% had apparently “risen” to 60% !!!!??????
Theres no doubt most yes voters got their votes in bright & early, like they were told to do.
But there were a lot of late voters……
Nearly 30% of the survey vote returns were late straggler votes, who I was sure, were responding to the NO vote adds on TV warning them they needed to vote in this one.
The chances of these late votes being yes votes seemed unlikely, given the yes vote was said to be in free fall during this survey period, because of bad publicity (the revelation of safe schools, No vote adds, alarming reports from other SSM countries, and bullying behaviour by gay activists)…..All this bad publicity….and they still get 60% ??????..Mmmmmm!!!
It wasn’t a plebiscite. The appeal against conducting the Postal suevey was overturned by the High Court. The result was delivered. The Legislation was passed by both Houses of Parliament. The Governor General approved the Legislation. It is now Australian Law. The first Same Sex Marriage Applications and recognition of Same Sex Marriages that were done overseas are in force from the 9th of December 2017.
Get over it.
Sadly many residents in Aged care facilities did not receive the paperwork to vote on this. Perhaps the result would have been very different had they been given the opportunity to vote on this. How convenient it was for them to be excluded. Undemocratic!
I’m sorry folks, but any mention of the “NWO” is enough of a trigger that I ignore the rest. Perhaps I should start a list. 🙂
Since the survey was conducted by the ABS, rather than under the auspices of the AEC (which would have required legislation), it’s unlikely that any law could have been breached by the circumstances which you describe. It certainly isn’t covered by any “constitutional law”.
I never pledged alligence to the UN (NWO) flag and will never salute any flag but my Australian flag come what may
Those who count the numbers in secret can also decide the outcome of the votes to me it was an expensive farce with the outcome decided well in advance of the return count
I would like to declare the postal survey on SSM a SHAM and according to Constitutional Law, ILLEGAL. First and foremost is that the result could be read through the sealed envelope, meaning the result could be tampered with within the Postal Service. Secondly, as it was not a compulsory vote by the electorate, it is not able to be considered a mandate on those who did not vote or those that voted in the negative. This event brings the current government and Prime Minister into the Halls Of Ill Repute and he joins Johnny “Gun Crazy” Howard in defying the legitimate needs of the electorate. The issue of the “Dual Citizenship” issue by politicians also muddies the waters, as the High Court has yet to rule if any of the current actions of the current Federal Parliament can be considered lawful, or if in fact an election needs to be called to elect legitimate government according to the Constitution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCHRQCKkS6E Must see Anonymous video explains it all 100% accurately. Or type in “You have lost more of your rights!” Anonymous Australia in youtube.
Of course the whole thing was rigged. The NWO has an agenda and no pesky Humans are allowed to block it. They pumped out the propaganda, made the ballot envelopes transparent so that postal workers etc could destroy the NO votes and then it wasn’t even a real vote. It has to be a referendum to be legally binding. Anyway, I WILL NEVER RECOGNIZE ANY POOFTER “MARRIAGE”. It simply does not and cannot exist.
A bit more rubish Mr Freedommam? You can have your say. The Statistics Determination 1983 (the Determination) is due to sunset on 1 October 2018 and will need to be remade so the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) can continue to provide detailed statistical information that helps to inform decision making.Treasury is seeking the community’s views on proposed changes to the Determination which are outlined in the consultation paper. The proposed changes will modernise the Determination and ensure it remains fit-for-purpose.
You can submit responses to this consultation up until 16 February 2018.
https://treasury.gov.au/consultation/c2017-t236646/
Nor, of course, is it possible to discount the real possibility that Pauline Hanson is a child-molesting alien lizard. The evidence for both propositions is pretty much the same.
this again is exactly why we the people must get off the couch and become politically involved and take back our country, Joseph you are also correct in your analysis but that sort of rubbish doesn’t work on everyone. And more and more people are waking up by the thousands in this country on a daily basis, that’s why you see this stuff accelerating they are trying to complete their agenda before we the people enough of us wake up and put the brakes on and boot these scum bags out.
YOU ARE CORRECT IN YOUR STATEMENT ABOUT FRAUD, THE DECISSION WOULD BE IN THE NEGITIVE HAD WE HAD A REFERENDEM. NO DOUBT THEY WERE AWARE OF IT IN THIS CASE. THE PEOPLE ARE TREATED LIKE CHILDREN AND RESPOND AS SUCH, NO DOUBT PRE-CONDITIONED BY FALSE REPORTING AND TV SHOWS ETC.
Yes fraud is a possibility….and the postal vote was a Very Sloppy and Open piece of SURVEY….NOT VOTING….and the PM was headstrong and was determined to GET WHAT HE WAS TOLD TO GET!!I am talking about the requirements that the NWO Agendas ,there were 17 due in September/October……Australia had to fulfil….
There is corruption everywhere ..in the latest information concerning the NWO ..QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA IS TO BE THE LAUNCHING ..QLD IS ALREADY BEING THE LAUNCH STATE…..
http://humansarefree.com/2017/12/the-reptilian-kyoto-protocols-and.html
look it up ..read as there are many things which have happened..and what the future holds.
Fake News…..?To commit fraud to get “the” result shows how low a government will go….