Gold Coast Greens

The Gold Coast Greens claim that their campaign to not hand out How To Vote cards in Burleigh was a great success in saving paper as well as educating voters about how the optional preferential voting system actually works.

Greens candidate, Anja Light, says she spent election day moving between booths in the Burleigh area helping voters who were unsure about the optional preferential voting system.

“Booth workers from the other parties reported that up to 50% of people refused to accept How To Vote cards from any party in Burleigh this year, a significant decrease from previous elections. We are all sick and tired of the waste and the intimidation on election day, that the old parties in Australia have allowed to continue for so many years.”

“Everyone seemed to be in full agreement that it was ridiculous that we are still throwing away out tonnes of paper on election day when we could just simply have preference suggestions mounted on board inside the booths.”

“Labor winner for Burleigh, Christine Smith, has promised to lobby strongly for an end of the paper waste on election day. Lets hope that the old parties across the State and on a Federal level can be bi-partisan on this issue and finally deliver what the majority wants.”

Ms. Light says that not handing out HTV cards did not adversely impact her election result. “My result was pretty consistent with other results for the Greens on the Gold Coast. I would say the biggest adverse affect for the Greens this election was people not understanding the preferential voting system – that they do not waste their vote if they vote one Greens and that their second preference is counted again as a full value vote.”

Stephen Dalton, convener of the GC Greens and Candidate for Southport, says that this initiative will mean that more Greens candidates will lobby on this issue and use other methods to communicate any preference suggestions in future election campaigns across the state.

Stephen spent most of the day on the Southport North booth where he spoke to many voters who did not understand Optional Preferential Voting (OPV).

"All it took was thirty seconds to explain it to most people before they understood that they have the power to decide their preferences," said Stephen, who also feels that ECQ TV advertising should be playing a bigger part in the electoral education process rather than merely telling people to vote or risk a fine.

"If people understood the system better, it might encourage them to be more willing participators in the democratic process and possibly even reduce the number of wasted informal votes," Stephen concluded.