Ocean Grove residents react to failure-to-vote notices

OCEAN GROVE’S Wendy Moor is adamant she followed due process during last October’s Greater Geelong City Council postal election.

So Wendy said she was surprised when she received a notice in the mail from the Australian Electoral Commission asking why she didn’t vote.

Wendy said she followed the correct process once more and responded to the letter within the allocated timeframe stating she did in fact vote and the next letter Wendy received was a fine.

“Both my partner John and I received the postal vote and both voted and posted them off. Then we got the first letter asking why we didn’t vote,” Ms Moor said.

“We sent the letter off explaining we did and then last week we both get an infringement notice each for $79 for not voting.”

Ms Moor said after following due process throughout every stage of the voting and subsequent investigatory stage she is now refusing to pay the fine.

“We did the right thing and I’m not going to waste my time going down to get a stat dec (statutory declaration form). From what I gather there’s a lot of people in Ocean Grove that did vote and received fines anyway,” Ms Moor said.

A Facebook post on an Ocean Grove Barwon Heads community noticeboard querying if other people had received fines they felt were incorrect had close to 100 people confirming they were in the same predicament.

“I responded to the post on the noticeboard and I’m wondering now if so many other people are in the same boat where the votes went that we posted,” she said.

“We received no acknowledgement of our letter, so I’m going to send our infringement notices back to the electoral commission in the prepaid envelope they supplied.”

Mike Lagastes from the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) said for the 2017 Greater Geelong City Council Elections they sent out a total of 21,312 apparent failure to vote (AFTV) notices; the total enrolment was 194,751, which indicates a 77 per cent voter turnout with 11 per cent of the total electorate sent an AFTV notice.

“This notice is not a fine but an opportunity for people to respond with a reason for their apparent failure to vote,” he said.

“If people do not respond to this notice or do not provide a valid excuse they will be sent an infringement notice. The VEC sent 15,527 infringement notices, 13,515 which were because of no response to the AFTV notice.

“Only 2,012 of the notices were due to an invalid response with 3,773 people excused after providing a valid response. This means the overwhelming majority of people who respond to the AFTV were excused.”

Mr Lagastes said voters who received an infringement notice can still provide a valid reason and be excused, this must be done in writing.

“If they do not have a valid reason they should pay the $79 as a penalty reminder fee of $24.70 will apply to unpaid infringements,” he said.

For advice on how to respond to an infringement notice contact the VEC on 1300 551 575.