THE most senior figures at the Victorian Electoral Commission have warned the organisation is at its limits and faces critical risks unless laws are urgently updated.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Sven Bluemmel and his deputy Dana Fleming, who acted in the top job at the last poll, sounded the alarm in a review of last year’s State election tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“It is apparent that the operating model for the [Victorian Electoral Commission] is at its limits,” they wrote.<\/p>\n
“The critical risks the existing election timeline creates can only be addressed through legislative change.”<\/p>\n
The report made 12 key recommendations, including making it an offence to harass or disrupt electoral workers and making it illegal for anyone removed from a voting centre to return.<\/p>\n
It also wants a ban on anyone other than the commission from distributing postal vote applications, removing certain how-to-vote card requirements, modernising campaign material laws, a holistic review of the Electoral Act and to allow election managers to issue cautions over less serious breaches of the act.<\/p>\n
The cost of running the 2022 state election totalled $97.94 million.<\/p>\n
The report highlighted a “workforce crisis” that forced the commission to use labour hire agencies for the first time to fill staff shortages and exposed difficulties in finding suitable location for early polling places.<\/p>\n
It also revealed the organisation was subject to more intense scrutiny than ever before.<\/p>\n
“The [commission’s] processes withstood this high level of scrutiny, but some parties and candidates, media and members of the public perpetuated mis- and dis-information, as well as general scepticism of electoral processes,” the report said.<\/p>\n
Several controversies arose during the 2022 election campaign, including a legal challenge from three teal candidates against the commission over their how-to-vote cards and confrontations involving candidates at polling places.<\/p>\n
The report also defended the decision to refer then Opposition Leader Matthew Guy to the anti-corruption watchdog nine days out from the vote, repeating a statement that it was required to do so.<\/p>\n
Mr Guy was referred over allegations his chief of staff Mitch Catlin asked a billionaire Liberal donor to make more than $100,000 in payments to his private marketing company.<\/p>\n
Mr Guy has maintained his innocence.<\/p>\n
The commission has committed to increasing the number of early voting centres, ensuring its website is up to date, investigating computer counting for lower house races and electronic roll mark-off to protect against accidental or intentional instances of multiple voting.<\/p>\n