EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Australian Capital Territory (Electoral) Regulations
1989 No. 2
Section 28 of the Australian Capital Territory (Electoral) Act 1988 (the Territory Electoral Act) provides that:
‘The Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing all matters:
(a) required or permitted by this Act to be prescribed; or
(b) necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to this Act’.
The proposed Australian Capital Territory (Electoral) Regulations complete the mechanical detail of a number of aspects of electoral administration under the Territory Electoral Act, particularly in relation to postal voting, declaration votes, recounting and compulsory voting.
The details of the provisions of the Regulations are as follows.
Regulation 1 - Citation
Formal. Provides for the citation of the regulations.
Regulation 2 - Interpretation
Subregulation 2(1) provides the definitions necessary for the purposes of the regulations.
Subregulation 2(2) provides that a reference to an elector of the Territory is a reference to a person whose name appears on the Electoral Roll for the Territory, and that a reference to a person qualified to be an elector of the Territory is a reference to a person who is entitled to have his or her name on the Roll.
Regulation 3 - Numbering of nominations
- 1 -
This regulation provides that where there exists multiple nominations of a person as a candidate for the election, each nomination is invalid.
Regulation 4 - Undertaking by officers and scrutineers
This regulation requires officers and scrutineers to sign an undertaking, in the approved form, in relation to the election.
Regulation 5 - Ballot boxes
This regulation requires that each ballot box be capable of being securely fastened.
Regulation 6 - Official mark
This regulation provides that the official mark on ballot papers shall be a representation of a shield with the letters ‘CA’ interwined.
Regulation 7 Postal vote certificate - printing on envelope
This regulation provides that a postal vote certificate may be printed on an envelop addressed to the relevant Divisional Returning Officer (DRO).
Regulation 8 - Registration of general postal voters
It is not intended that there be for Territory purposes a Register of General Postal Voters separate from that maintained under section 185 of the CEA. This regulation therefore specifies that the Register of General Postal Voters kept for a Division in the Territory under section 185 of the CEA shall be the Register of General Postal Voters kept for that Division for the purposes of Territory elections.
Regulation 9 - Forms of postal ballot papers
This regulation provides for the use of ‘open’ postal ballot papers, that is it enables electoral officials to insert in the ballot paper details of the parties and candidates where they have not been printed on the ballot paper.
Regulation 10 - Manner of marking postal vote
This regulation requires a voter voting by post to mark the ballot paper in the manner indicated in the directions on the ballot paper.
Regulation 11 - Receipt and forwarding of certain postal votes
This regulation describes the procedure for forwarding particular postal votes when:
(a) a DRO receives a postal vote for a Division other than his or her Division; - 2 -
(b) an Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) receives a postal vote; and
(c) an ARO outside Australia receives a postal vote.
Regulation 12 - Postal ballot paper receiving by Presiding Officer
This regulation describes the procedure for forwarding postal ballot papers received by a Presiding Officer.
Regulation 13 - Scrutiny of postal ballot papers
This regulation generally requires that the scrutiny of postal ballot papers take place as nearly as practicable in the same manner as the scrutiny of absent voter’s ballot papers (subregulation (1)). However, subregulation (2) then details the particular manner in which a DRO must deal with two specific types of ballot paper, namely those given to an elector in accordance with an oral application and those delivered or posted to an elector whom a registered medical practitioner has certified in writing to be so incapacitated as to not to be able to sign their name. The manner of dealing with these ballot papers differs from the usual preliminary scrutiny of postal ballot papers described in the Territory Electoral Act by omitting the need for the DRO to compare the elector’s signatures on the postal vote certificate with that on the application for the certificate and the need for the DRO to be satisfied the signatures are the same.
Regulation 14 – Declarations under certain provisions
Sections 192, 235, 236 and 237 of the CEA as applied by section 16 of the Territory Electoral Act (‘the CEA as modified’) enable persons to vote in the following circumstances provided they make the appropriate declaration:
• where a person whose name has been noted as having received a postal ballot paper or postal vote certificate claims not to have received the documents (section 192);
• where the name of a person who claims to vote cannot be found on the certified list (section 235);
• where a person who claims to vote has a mark next to his or her name indicating he or she has already voted at that polling place (section 236);
• where the address of a person who claims to vote is not shown on the certified list (section 237).
This regulation provides that a declaration under these sections must be printed on an envelope-addressed to the appropriate DRO or attached by adhesive or in some other way securely fastened to the envelope.
Regulation 15 - Ballot papers under certain provisions
This regulation requires that the ballot paper to be used by a person voting under section 192, 235, 236 or 237 of the CEA as modified have endorsed on it the name of the section under which the person is voting.
Regulation 16 - Scrutiny of votes cast under section 192, 235, 236 and 237 of the Electoral Act
This regulation provides that the scrutiny of votes cast under section 192, 235, 236 and 237 of the CEA as modified shall be dealt with as nearly as practicable in the way absent voters’ ballot papers and declaration are dealt with.
Regulation 17 - Assistance to certain voters
This regulation describes the procedure to be followed by the presiding officer where a person voting under section 192, 235, 236 or 237 of the CEA as modified is physically incapacitated or illiterate.
Regulation 18 - Spoilt ballot paper
Section 238 of the CEA as modified requires the presiding officer to deal with spoilt ballot papers in the prescribed manner. This regulation describes the manner in which spoilt ballot papers should be handled.
Regulation 19 - Scrutiny by Assistant Returning Officer
This regulation describes the procedure to be followed by the ARO upon receipt of a ballot box prior to proceeding with the scrutiny under section 273 of the CEA as modified.
Regulation 20 - Recount
This regulation requires the DRO to notify each candidate of the time and place of any recount and sets out the detailed procedures for the recount.
Regulation 21 - Notice to elector and reply
Section 245 of the CEA as modified deals with compulsory voting. Subsection 245(4) provides that within the prescribed period after the close of an election the DRO must send to each voter who has not voted at the election a notice in the prescribed form notifying the elector of his or her apparent failure to vote, advising them that it is an offence to fail to vote without a valid and sufficient reason and calling for the elector to show cause why legal proceedings should not be commenced. Subsection 245(5) refers to the form attached to the notice which should be returned by the elector.
This regulation provides that:
• the prescribed period with in which the DRO must send the notice is three months after the close of the election;
• the prescribed form of the notice of failure to vote is Form 1 in the Schedule; and
• the form attached to the notice to be returned by the elector may be in accordance with Form 2 in the Schedule.
Regulation 22 - Antartic electors
This regulation provides that an annotation of the Roll so as to indicate an elector is an Antartic elector under the CEA is taken as also having been made under the Territory Electoral Act.
Regulation 23 - Preservation of documents
Section 393 of the CEA as modified provides for the preservation in the prescribed manner of ballot papers, certified lists of voters and declarations. This regulation describes the procedure for the forwarding and safekeeping of this election material after the scrutiny.
Regulation 24 - Authorised official inquiry
This regulation provides that where so directed by the Electoral Commission, the DRO may open the parcels of election material, retain the material or deal with it in the manner directed by the Electoral Commissioner, and, where the purpose of the inquiry has been satisfied, reseal the parcels and identify on the parcel the fact that it was opened and the purpose for which it had been opened.
Regulation 25 - Collection of statistical information
This regulation provides that election material may be used for the purpose of the collection of statistical information.
Regulation 26 - Approval of courier service
This regulation provides that the Territory Electoral Officer or the Electoral Commission may approve a courier service for the purposes of the Regulations.
Schedule
The Schedule contains the Forms necessary for the purposes of the regulations.