[EMAIL] - Scrutineer complaint about being denied access to Scrutiny (Western Australian Senate Scrutiny)

aec_email_complaint.txt

Dear AEO,

On Thursday I made a complaint to the AEC Officer in charge at the
Central Scrutiny Station in Northbridge that scrutineers were being
denied access to a significant proportion of the scrutiny process.

During the first days of the scrutiny, at the Belmont Scrutiny
Station, I verbally requested access to oversee how certain parts of
the central scrutiny system was being conducted.  Principally I wanted
to inspect parts of what is referred to by the AEC as "EasyCount" to
ensure that the votes were being handled in a proper manner during
entry/handling and storage.

When I initially asked about EasyCount at the Belmont Scrutiny Station
I was denied access and told to contact info@aec.gov.au.  The reason
given to me, was that the staff did not know how to go about providing
access.  I did so immediately and received a response from the AEC
confirming they had received my request.  I have still not received a
response to this email.

Another candidates scrutineer then suggested I attend the Central
Scrutiny Station in Northbridge in order to scrutinise the EasyCount
System.

I attended the Central Scrutiny Station at Northbridge and made the
same request.  I was initially delayed being told that, as the staff
had not received such a request before, they needed to seek
clarification as to how to proceed. The staff asked that I write down
my queries and informed me that they would respond to them by email.
This was on the first day at Central Scrutiny (8th April).

I was informed by a scrutineer from another party that the responses
to my requests were distributed on paper last Tuesday (February 22nd).
 I had received no correspondence from the AEC.  I was provided a
paper copy of the response on Thursday when I attended the Northbridge
location.

The final response by the AEC to my request to review the EasyCount
system was that the AEC considers it commercial in confidence and
would not allow me access to review. The response shows a clear
disregard of the AECs duties outlined in the Commonwealth Electoral
Act, Section 265 and means the public can have no confidence in the
AECs handling of the vote. I immediately made a formal complaint to
the AEC Officer in charge.

My complaint was that I was not allowed access to significant parts of
the scrutiny process.

This improper conduct of the AEC in refusing to fulfil it's duties as
outlined in the Commonwealth Electoral Act is a clear perversion of
the scrutiny system.

When I initially requested to scrutinise EasyCount at the Central
Scrutiny station, I also asked what testing had occurred and by whom.
In the AEC response, my query had been truncated to simply what
testing had occurred.

The AEC response was consistent with the advice provided to
scrutineers present at the start of the Central Scrutiny that; the
system was last fully certified in 2012, and any changes to EasyCount
(Senate) must again pass the certification process before being
applied to an election.

This answer is deeply concerning given that there was a change to how
below the line votes were to be handled in the amendments made as a
result of the botched senate count in 2013.  This change meant that
below the line votes that previously would have been declared invalid
should now have been counted as valid.

I would like responses to;

  Is the AEC is aware of this, or any other instance, where there has
been systematic disenfranchisement of voters due to EasyCount
mishandling votes?
  Who has conducted the testing of EasyCount?
  Specifically what they were testing for?  Ideally this would also
include a copy of all test results, and the final certification.

Finally I asked how the hardware used by the AEC for the scrutiny
process is secured/procured.  The AECs response was simply that it is
procured using existing IT hardware contracts in place at the AEC.

I would like responses to;
  Does this means that the hardware was in fact not secured?
  What IT hardware contracts in particular were used to source the
hardware used for the election? Ideally with a copy of the actual
contract.

Regards,
Luke John.