The legitimacy of two Victorian local government elections has been called into question after a large number of duplicate votes were detected from mailed ballot packs.
The suspicious number of multiple returns — defined as more than one postal ballot pack returned from a single voter, or purporting to be from a single voter — were flagged in Whittlesea City Council Lalor Ward and Knox City Council Baird Ward elections.
Electoral Commissioner Sven Bluemmel said the numbers were high enough that the results of the elections could have been impacted, and he would be applying to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to assess the validity of the results today.
The situation had been referred to Victoria Police and the Local Government Inspectorate.
"There are serious offences in the local government act for interfering with the election," Mr Bluemmel said.
He said the unusually high number of multiple returns could indicate postal vote tampering.
"To those who seek to subvert our electoral process, there will be consequences. We will detect your efforts, and you will be caught," he said.
Mr Bluemmel was not able to say which candidates in the election might have benefited from the illegitimate votes.
"That's a matter for the investigation, we simply don't know that, and of course the ballot is secret, so we simply don't have that investigation knowledge at the moment.
Mr Bluemmel was unable to say how many fraudulent votes would have been progressed to counting.
In the Lalor Ward, only 39 votes separated the winner, Stevan Kozmevski, and runner-up Ellen McNaught.
The results in Baird Ward were less close, with provisional results giving Peter Lockwood 5222 votes to runner-up Yvonne Allred's 4845 — a margin of 377.
"It's clear the results of the elections could have been impacted," Mr Bluemmel said.
Mr Bluemmel said there was no indication the situations in Lalor Ward and Baird Ward were connected.
He said he was proud of the VEC teams for being able to identify the irregularities, and said the identification were able to be made because of new safeguards put in place four years ago.
How were the irregularities detected?
Mr Bluemmel said the high number of multiple returns was detected following the close of voting on Friday, October 25.
"For these wards we discovered irregularities in the voter declarations between the ballot packs returned by voters from the first mailout of ballots, and replacement ballot packs that purport to be completed and returned by the same voters."
There were 128 suspicious returns for the Lalor Ward, and 61 suspicious returns for the Baird Ward elections.
There were 15,823 voters registered in the Lalor Ward, with 12,301 votes counted in total.
In Baird, there were 12,441 enrolled voters in Baird Ward, and 10,067 votes counted in total.
Mr Bluemmel assured legitimate voters that their votes would be counted.
The Lalor Ward election went to full recount yesterday morning and the election was declared on Tuesday night.
In Baird Ward, results were declared on Monday.
Legislation did not allow for elections to be paused as a result of the suspicious votes.
Victoria Police confirmed the VEC referral had been received, and the case would be assessed by detectives from the Financial Crime Squad.
"As such, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time," a police spokesperson said.
Minister for Local Government Melissa Horne said electoral integrity was the cornerstone of the democratic process.
"Any instance of voter fraud is unacceptable, erodes community trust and diminishes the institutions where it has taken place," she said.
"We commend the VEC on their work to uphold the electoral integrity of this year's elections and rapidly identifying this matter."
Results will stand until VCAT determines validity of elections
Knox City Council’s chief executive officer Bruce Dobson said the results would stand, until VCAT made an alternate determination.
Whittlesea City Council chief executive Craig Lloyd said Cr Kozmevski would also continue on until VCAT determined the validity of the election, and that no further comment would be made.
Voters can request replacement ballot packs if theirs is lost or damaged.
In 2020, an unusual number of electors in the Merri-bek local government area — then named Moreland — contacted the VEC to complain they had not received their ballots.
When the votes were counted, it was discovered that 23 electors had voted twice, leading to an investigation by both the electoral commission and police that discovered the original ballot papers had been stolen.
Former councillor Milad El-Halabi pleaded guilty to vote tampering, and was handed a $20,000 fine and 18-month community work order in June this year.
Punishable with prison
Under the Local Government Act 2020, interfering with postal ballot materials carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison or 600 penalty units — which currently equates to a fine of just over $118,000.
If a councillor is charged with a serious offence under the Act, they are automatically stood down until the matter is resolved.
A councillor convicted of an offence is disqualified from holding the position for a period of eight years.
