| THE notorious "tablecloth" ballot paper caused voter chaos across NSW yesterday and raised fears of a record high informal vote. Angry voters were forced to grapple with the biggest ballot paper in Australian history to elect 21 people to the State's Legislative Council. Measuring nearly a metre square and containing the names of 264 candidates and 80 political parties, the "tablecloth" spilled out of the enlarged voting booths which were meant to cope with the oversized paper. People sat on floors, swore or threw their hands up in despair as they tried to deal with the voting sheet. The informal vote was set to soar as disgusted voters said they would "just tick anything to get it over with" and many elderly people found the "tablecloth" simply daunting. Some people asked polling officers if they could keep the ballot paper as a souvenir to send to friends interstate and overseas. Premier Bob Carr said yesterday the massive ballot paper presented a challenge for NSW voters. "I have been to five polling booths this morning, there were complaints about it," he said. NSW Electoral Commissioner Ian Dickson said voters had been forced to wait for an hour to vote in smaller suburban booths in Sydney. People voting at Town Hall in the city waited more than 30 minutes early in the day. "It is working. It is as I expected, there have been delays, but people are turning up knowing what to expect," Mr Dickson said. "It's the smaller booths that have been the problem, where we just haven't been able to fit any more tables or people inside. |
Voters in a flap over big paper |
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"Older people have battled with the paper, but officials are helping them fold it and then they're pushing it into the box with a ruler or whatever." There are queues, but people are accepting it." Mr Dickson said he expected the informal vote for the Upper House election to exceed 10 per cent, compared to 7 per cent in 1995. And pollsters predicted yesterday's informal vote could climb to more than 10 per cent. Polling officers reported most people preferring to vote "above the line" -allowing parties to distribute people's preferences rather than filling in all 264 boxes "below the line". The Electoral Commission
increased the number of polling booths around the State by a third for
yesterday's But there were still delays inside polling places as voters tried to fold the paper and jam it into the narrow slits of the ballot box. Tables were supplied at some polling places, but at others people resorted to sitting on the floor and spreading the ballot paper in front of them so they could work out how to vote for individual candidates below the line. |
Even more demeaning for voters was the realisation that while they sat on the floor, the 21 people they elect will be paid $110,000 a year and receive a minimum $40,000 pension for life. But using bigger booths to cope with the ballot paper turned out to be like trying to stop an elephant with a pea-shooter. It was obvious travelling around booths yesterday that the elderly were most confused by the "tablecloth". Many old people asked booth workers to fill the ballot papers in, fold them and jam them into the boxes. Electoral staff arrived early at polling stations to pre-fold ballot papers to make the "tablecloth" easier to use. Not surprisingly, polling officers were kept busy all day helping people fold their ballot papers and force them into boxes once they had voted. Premier Carr has promised to lift registration fees from $500 to $3500 to stand for the Upper House. The minimum membership required to register a party would rise from 200 people to 1000. The cost to taxpayers
for the Upper House election blew out by $2 million as the record field
lined up, encouraged by the success of obscure candidates |
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