The Australian Electoral Commission has lodged a petition with the High Court seeking that the Court make orders declaring that, pursuant to para 360(1)(vii) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, “the election of 6 Senators for the State of Western Australia (Western Australia) to serve in the Senate of the Parliament of the Commonwealth (Parliament) held on 7 September 2013, is absolutely void”. (Source: Commonwealth Gazette)
The lodgment of the petition follows the re-count of the Senate votes for WA and what the Electoral Commission said was the discovery that “a total of 1,370 ballot papers for votes which had been cast in either the Division of Forrest or the Division of Pearce – consisting of 120 informal votes and 1,250 unrejected above the line votes – could not be located and brought within the re-count”. The Electoral Commission considered that if the missing votes had been available for re-count, “it was likely, in the sense of there being a real chance, that the result of the Election would have been different”.
If the High Court makes the orders sought, it is presumed a fresh election for the 6 WA Senators will need to be held.
[LTN 223, 18/11/13]