Draconian changes to South Australia’s Electoral Act

To The Editor The Advertiser, by Dennis Mathews, 21 Feb 14

The Duopoly Election Bullies stand to gain from their draconian changes to the Electoral Act not only by excluding competition (The Advertiser,21/2/14) but whoever gets into government will get the revenue from candidates who lost their $3000 deposit.

If this system had been in place for the 2010 election the increased revenue would have been $268,000.

The changes to the Electoral Act were supposedly to prevent voters from having to fill out a very large voting paper for the Legislative Council and to prevent “gaming” through organized and complicated preference deals. The latter meant that voters had no idea where their preferences were going.

In actual fact the changes have affected both the Legislative Council and the House of Representatives, gaming will still occur in the 2014 election, and we may still get a very long voting paper for the Legislative Council.

Ironically we may end up with electing to the Legislative Council a candidate who lost their $3000 deposit because they didn’t get 4% of the primary vote.