I was intrigued by Mayor Wests position on changing the time-honoured way we Australians vote because of his concerns around the current COVID 19 situation (Manning River Times July 28, 2021).
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The paper ballot, in person voting, at a polling station is a treasure beyond anything else we own.
Despite all this, Mayor West, in a gloomy analysis of our current health crisis, wants to, for eternity, throw away a voting system that has worked well for us for over a century. Mayor West wants to substitute our current system with mass postal voting and online voting! Are you kidding me?
The United States is currently a bitterly divided nation because of the two systems Mayor West is suggesting.
A bipartisan United States report from the Commission on Federal Election Reform (2005) and chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III stated, "Absentee ballots (postal voting) remains the largest source of potential voter fraud". As well, how easy would it be for bad actors to hack online voting, conducted from our home computers?
Have faith Mayor West, we will beat this current health crisis, Australians are good at defying the odds. Don't try and con us into a system that favours the corrupt, the rich and the powerful. Leave our democracy in safe hands with our time-tested polling booths and paper voting.
We as Australians will beat this virus and any politician who tries to interfere with our democratic rights.
