Postal vote errors common throughout State

Only 15 per cent of City of Busselton postal votes have been returned just a week out from WA’s 2013 Local Government election deadline on October 19.

But WA Electoral Commission information manager Justin Harbord said the City wasn’t too far off the mark, with the Statewide average for returned postal votes sitting at just 19.5 per cent.

At the time the Times went to print yesterday the WAEC had recorded 4.4 per cent rejected and invalid votes for the City of Busselton.

The Shire of Boddington in the Peel region had the highest turnout at 43 per cent while the City of Joondalup was the lowest return rate, at about 7 per cent.

Mr Harbourd said the higher voter turnout percentages tended to be off a lower elector base.

Busselton’s figures were based on 3500 returned voter packages, while Boddington’s 43 per cent reflected 1000 voter packages.

Voter turnout is typically low in non-compulsory local government elections but last week the State count centre reported “disturbingly high” numbers of invalid votes during postal ballot processing.

In 2011 just 31 per cent of eligible electors voted but 4.2 per cent of those votes couldn’t be counted.

More than 8000 were returned unsigned, while a further 6260 were missing the declaration panel altogether.