Huge number of errors in official count

The Electoral Commission released:

On Tuesday 7 November the Commission announced it had found three voting places where there were data entry errors for the party vote results.

The following additional data entry errors have been found.

• 15 voting places with data entry errors resulting in small changes for electorate candidate results.
• One electorate where the data for a small number of special votes had been entered incorrectly.
• Five voting places entered election day votes as advance voting. This did not affect the total numbers of votes for parties or candidates.   

620 votes in the East Coast electorate that were included in the preliminary count were not included in the official count. The votes were in a ballot box at the electorate headquarters and were missed during the official count. The votes have now been counted and added to the electorate totals.

So let’s see if I have this right – there were a total of 24 data entry errors and a forgotten ballot box!

This is unacceptable. The Electoral Commission has one job and it failed. They had three weeks to check, double check and even triple check the results and they published so called final results that were riddled with errors. You can forgive one or two maybe, but not 24.

There are quality assurance steps across the counting, data entry and reporting processes that have been applied. People should have confidence in the integrity of the official count and the amended results,” says Karl Le Quesne, Chief Electoral Officer.

Whatever steps they had were inadequate. They received over $60 million to run the election and didn’t have anyone checking the data entry of the results.

For around $500 you could have had two different people do the data entry, and then compare the results to see if they agree. This is not rocket science. This is basic basic quality assurance.

“The Electoral Commission board will commission an independent review of the quality assurance processes in place and what improvements can be made to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” says Jane Meares, Acting Board Chair.

What is the accountability for this? Will anyone resign? The incoming Government should commission its own review.