our proposals:

• Make it compulsory that voters provide photographic identification at the polling booth.

  • So much of our lives depend on having adequate photo identification. It is not unreasonable to expect the same for people validating their identity when they vote.

  • All voters must present current and unaltered photographic identification at the polling booth, prior to voting.

• Abolish above the line voting in all Upper House votes, whether in the Federal or State Parliaments.

  • As over 90% of people vote above the line on Senate ballot papers, a strong advantage goes to organised political parties, rather than true independent candidates. This is fundamentally unfair.

  • When voters vote above the line, the selected political party chooses their candidate, rather than the voter choosing that candidate directly.

  • Voters should be voting for their preferred candidate, rather than their preferred political party. Above the line voting is antithetical to this notion and therefore should be abolished.

• State and Federal Electoral Commissions should provide a website platform for voters to learn about candidates within their electorate.

  • This would be an unbiased, centralised platform for candidate information to be displayed to the voter. All candidates within that electorate should be displayed with information on their campaigns.

  • Candidates should be provided with login details to be able to edit their candidate profile, to allow them to upload bios, photos, links to their candidate social media/websites, or any other election specific material.

• Each ballot should list candidates in a random order.

  • Currently a ballot draw takes place to allocate a position to each candidate on the ballot paper. This is advantageous to candidates, to varying degrees, who obtain the number one spot on the ballot, and to a lesser extend, the last position.

  • Voting analysis indicates that a percentage of voters who are disinterested in voting will number their ballots from 1 at the top and increment to the bottom of the ballot. This is called the ‘donkey vote’.

  • To eliminate the effect of the donkey vote, we believe that ballots should be printed with candidates in a random order, such that the ballot being issued is different to the one that preceded it and so on.

• Pre-poll voting should be abolished or limited.

  • Currently, State elections allow for a week or pre-polling and Federal elections allow for two weeks. Pre-polling was originally allowed for voters who know they cannot attend a polling booth on election day, e.g. voters who will be overseas.

  • Pre-polling greatly benefits large political parties, or candidates backed by wealthy donors, who can allocate sufficient resources to ‘man the booths’. This disadvantages minor party or independent candidates who are not blessed with the same resources.

  • Being able or unable to station sufficient representation at the polling booths does not reflect whether the candidate is suitable for election, but can result in a lower percentage of the vote. It is for this reason that we believe that pre-poll should be abolished.

• Party affiliation of candidates to not be shown on the ballot paper.

  • We believe that voters should vote for the best candidate, not their preferred party. Therefore, party affiliation should be removed from the ballot to put the onus on the voter to research the candidate before voting.