{"id":196961,"date":"2017-12-04T17:06:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T07:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=196961"},"modified":"2020-06-29T17:57:41","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T07:57:41","slug":"election-results-not-good-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2017\/12\/04\/election-results-not-good-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Results Not Good Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>December 4, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Dafyd Martindale<\/strong><\/p>\n

Queensland went to the polls on Saturday, November 25 to elect its next State Government.<\/p>\n

But as of today – December 4 – we still don’t really know who will be governing us for the next three years.<\/p>\n

While the return of the Palaszczuk Government seems the most likely outcome, the need to count postal and absentee votes appears set to delay a definitive answer until later this week, or possibly next week.<\/p>\n

And in 2017, I think this sort of delay is inexcusable.<\/p>\n

Half a century ago when I was in school, I often used a pencil to fill in exam cards that went off to be machine-read somewhere in the bowels of the Department Of Education.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exam results were delivered pretty well overnight using this system.<\/p>\n

And for decades, Australia Post has used machine-reading of envelopes to sort the nation’s mail for delivery.<\/p>\n

So why is the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) not investigating similar technologies to help us get election results faster?<\/p>\n

The shambolic approach the ECQ currently uses was starkly demonstrated in the March Council elections, when South Burnett voters had to wait more than a fortnight to get their votes counted … and so did every other Council in Queensland. <\/p>\n

The delays were so catastrophic the State Government ordered an independent review of the ECQ’s handling of that particular poll.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a damning report issued three months later, the review found the ECQ was a secretive, authoritarian organisation with significant management, technological and communication problems and a culture of insecurity, avoidance and occasional nepotism – things the ECQ promised they’d fix.<\/p>\n

But here we are, five months further down the track, and our State Government remains in caretaker mode while the ECQ painstakingly counts the ballots and slowly … oh, so slowly … releases the data.<\/p>\n

Surely, in an age when computing power is cheap and abundant, we can use all manner of machine-reading systems to get an election result on voting night or the day after?<\/p>\n

And just as surely, with elections consuming more and more public resources as time goes by, a swap to automated vote counting could generate some significant cost savings as well?<\/p>\n

One way or another, the ECQ needs to do better. <\/p>\n

And if they’re incapable of doing so themselves, then helping them is a task the incoming State Government should seriously look at.<\/p>\n

Footnote:<\/strong> The results of the 2017 Queensland state election were finally announced on Friday, December 9 almost a fortnight after the ballot, and the new Government will be sworn in on Tuesday, December 12. <\/p>\n

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