by staff writers

Queensland unions have been rushed in to help the Labor Party hold on to power in the state election after pre-poll voting started on Monday.

Every dirty tactic is being used to keep the Labor Party snouts in the trough.

Already many more votes are being cast around the state than ever before. More than 100,000 votes were cast on Monday. Postal vote applications at 850,000 have far exceeded any previous election.

Voting fraud has already started in Cairns where a voter reported her name had been crossed off the roll before she voted.  Someone else had voted in her name.

Pre-poll voting hours have been drastically extended to 9pm pushing political parties and the record number of independents to the brink unable to cover the large number of booths with enough volunteers.

This deliberate strategy by the Labor Party saw minor parties unable to find enough helpers to hand out how to vote cards but the Labor unions have come to the rescue by manning booths with members being flown into the regions from around the state.

Compliments of either their union or the Labor Party, members are being put up in hotels and motels with all expenses paid.

Union hacks began their intimidation tactics heckling opposition candidates almost immediately. At the Far North Queensland booth of Mossman, Together Union thugs intimidated the Katters Australian Party candidate for Cook and nurse Tanika Parker.

She said they gave her a hard time but fortunately she has broad shoulders and ignored their jibes.

In Cook electorate the sitting Labor Member Cynthia Lui has been unable enlist any local ALP members to man polling booths but Maritime Union of Australia members have answered the call and are out in force at the Mareeba booth.

The KAP candidate for the Cairns seat of Mulgrave, Attila Fehrer-Holan said the predicted voting fraud had already begun when a voter reported to him that her name had been crossed off the roll as having voted before she applied for a ballot paper at the Cairns Showground polling booth.

Mr Feher-Holan said he had a representative witness the sealing of the flimsy cardboard ballot boxes before voting started . “The zip tie seals were not fixed properly to the box and my representative objected  and when the box was put in place the seals fell off,” Mr Feherer-Holan said.

“The electoral officer said it didn’t matter but after my representative kept objecting the box was replaced with another with proper seals.”

In previous elections the Electoral Commission of Queensland has discovered many thousands of cases of multiple voting. In the 2015 Canning by-election in Western Australia the roll was padded with 8,200 false entries, discovered by Australians For Honest Elections before the election.

In the same election the Australian Electoral Commission revealed afterwards that 18,000 people voted more than once. No new election was called.

Fraudulent postal votes could see the Queensland Labor Party hold on to government because no identification is required to apply for a postal ballot in the same manner as America after President Donald Trump castigated postal voting and potential fraud. The only form of ID required is the signature of another citizen on the application.

This is similar to Australia where postal ballot applications only require the details of another person already on the roll.

The decades-old ALP motto uttered by unionists at polling booths reverberates at polling booths today:

“Vote early and vote often, Comrade.”