A legal challenge for an “X” to count as a “No” vote on ballots in the upcoming referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has been dismissed by a judge this week.
On Wednesday, Justice Steven Rares ruled in favour of the Australian Electoral Commission against an application by the deregistered United Australian Party (UAP) to make crosses a valid vote.
“A cross could indicate agreement, disapproval, or an unwillingness to answer the question at all, while a tick was not similarly ambiguous, either indicating approval or an affirmative response,” said Justice Rares.
“It does not convey a negative response.”
UAP Senator Ralph Babet launched the litigation in partnership with billionaire Clive Palmer to have the court make the changes just four weeks away from voting.
“At the end of the day, what’s it about ladies and gents? It’s about fairness,” said Mr. Babet ahead of the court ruling.
Philip Santucci officially made the now-dismissed application in hopes it would provide clarity and help voters accept the outcome.
“The question of what a voter intended by the use of ticks and crosses must be dealt with in context,” he said.
“If vote-counters begin with the assumption voters intended to cast a formal ballot, a cross is conclusively a disapproval of the proposition.
Similarly, a tick could not be regarded to be unambiguous if a cross was in the context of mandatory voting on a single question, where some could view voting itself as an exercise in “ticking a box”, Mr. Santucci argued.
With an informal cross mark remaining invalid, Australians should mark ballots with either a Yes or a No in plain English.
However, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has indicated that a checkmark is still counted as a Yes vote.
“The legal advice provides that for a single referendum question, a clear ‘tick’ should be counted as formal and a ‘cross’ should not,” says the AEC.
The UAP says that the law is unfair.
“The idea that you have a tick counted as yes but a cross as invalid simply gerrymanders this election,” said former member of the UAP Craig Kelly.
The AEC says that the issue with using a cross is that in daily life, it can often represent a “check mark” indicating yes, and has rejected any claims of election integrity being compromised.
“The AEC completely and utterly rejects the suggestions by some that by transparently following the established, public and known legislative requirements, we are undermining the impartiality and fairness of the referendum.”
The commission also says that more than 99 percent of the votes cast in the last referendum in 1999 were formal.
“Even of the 0.86 percent of informal votes, many would have had no relevance to the use of ticks or crosses,” said the AEC.
The AEC expects the vast majority of voters to follow the instructions.
The referendum needs more than half of all voters and four of the six states to vote in favour of The Voice on Oct. 14.
