Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian has appealed her narrow loss to Nicolette Boele in Bradfield to the court of disputed returns. According to Professor Anne Twomey, no questions of law are raised in Kapterian’s challenge. Rather, the court is being asked to determine more mundane questions. Is that 1 actually a 7; is that 6 an 8? and so on.
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The last time the courts considered questions about ballot formality was in 2007 from the seat of McEwen. The resulting federal court case produced one of the more unusual judgments one will find in Australian law reports. Mitchell v Bailey (No 2) ****contains a lengthy tabular schedule, listing the disposition of 643 reserved ballots and – in 153 instances – reasons for Justice Richard Tracey’s assessments about ballot formality differing from those of the AEC. Examples include comments such as “Notations reasonably resemble numbers. In particular, three of them can be recognised as figures 7, 6, 5.” Why? How? Presumably, they just did to Tracey, just as they did not to AEC officials. No criticism of the late justice is intended; the point is to highlight just how subjective and hence seemingly unfair these assessments – and election outcomes – can appear.
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Here’s a modest proposal. For decades we’ve been training computers to recognise handwritten digits, principally for making mail processing and delivery more efficient. Massive datasets of real, handwritten digits have become one of the touchstones of machine learning, test beds for refining algorithms and global competition among researchers. The best algorithms have 99.82% accuracy in recognising digits. And the AEC itself uses digital scanning to process Senate ballot papers.
Thanks for that little extra in the title.
Machine learning (well, more specifically, the marketing term “AI”) has a bad reputation. It’s a tool. And we’re so used to seeing that tool wildly abused that it’s hard not to have an instinctual reaction whenever it appears in the media. But recognising writing and text is one of the legitimately reasonable uses of the tool, so long as it’s done properly and not misunderstood as an objective replacement for humans - it may have better accuracy that a typical person but still it’s not objective and its training data will inevitably have limitations.
Rather, the court is being asked to determine more mundane questions. Is that 1 actually a 7; is that 6 an 8? and so on.
It consistently amazes me on the level of inability people have when it comes to simple tasks like filling in a ballot.
Now, I understand that I have advantages that not everyone has, like over a decade of local school experience filling exams, so I shouldn’t consider what’s natural and obvious to me to be universal expected knowledge. But at some point, the government and AEC should just have a mandatory 30 minute voting test when you enroll, so you have no excuse not to know how to print numbers clearly (hell, teach us about
7and other good habits), so you know how to read simple English voting instructions or know how to ask for assistance if you’re unable for any reason.We collectively need to stop using “AI” to refer to “generative AI”. Specialized AI, or rather machine learning, can be extremely useful.
AI is an umbrella term that covers many things. Why would we stop using it?
Because it’s too vague.
It could mean the useless silicon-valley venture that is being slotted into everything and making it worse (generative AI), or it could mean clustering algorithms that are indispensable in everything from medicine to meteorology (machine learning).
Sounds like you have an axe to grind with gen AI.
Not really, but it’s mass-producing garbage content. It’s only useless for cost-cutting at the expense of quality and that reality is undeniable, the more it’s used the lower the quality of everything we engage with.
A test when you’re 18 that lasts the rest of your life? Can’t account for future injuries, disability (including those that only happened after testing), old age, or just general annoyance over being at the polling centre and apathy over filling it out well? It’s not going to solve anything.
Anyone can show they can print numbers once off. And what happens if they can’t pass? Are they barred from voting? That’s risky for both the reason of discrimination AND people intentionally failing. Take a mandatory number writing course? For how long? What if someone indefinitely fails?
Unless these people literally didn’t make it to year 6 they’ve already shown they CAN write numbers, read basic instructions and ask someone for help. That doesn’t mean they will always be able to, or always want to.
It won’t meaningfully reduce the number of ambiguous ballots.
A test when you’re 18 that lasts the rest of your life? […]
Good criticism, I didn’t think that part through. Once every 3 years is probably to often. Somewhere in the middle would be ideal.
And the bottom line is that many people will just be in a hurry, stressed or tired. But I hope that this kind of thing would improve instinct and build habits that would reduce the impact of those inevitable factors.
And what happens if they can’t pass? Are they barred from voting?
Try again until they pass. Not registered until they pass. The test allows all the assistance that one would receive in a polling centre.
What’s the point of letting someone in the polling booth if they can’t fill out the ballot under ideal conditions? It’s not empowering them, it’s just compromising the democratic process.
That’s risky for both the reason of discrimination
I claim that if someone is unable to pass this test, their vote wouldn’t have counted anyway. It’s only as discriminatory as the election itself is.
Unless these people literally didn’t make it to year 6
That, and plenty of other edge cases too. There are a surprising amount of people who made it through school and remained illiterate or innumerate (I can’t easily find stats).
That doesn’t mean they will […] always want to.
It’s perfectly valid (IMO) to nullify your vote. What disturbs me is how many people seem to unintentionally cast an invalid vote despite wanting to vote. It points me to suspect a systematic issue beyond just apathy.
No discrimination in these cases is based on failing people that should be passing or failing based on higher standards than you’re applying broadly. Not registered until you pass leads to the other issue I said, people intentionally failing to never have to vote. I personally believe being forced to at least turn up at the polling centre makes a significant difference to the final vote. I would rather some small percentage of votes end up not counted as unreadable than 40%+ of the population opt out of voting.
There’s an interesting discussion about whether forcing people who don’t want to vote into voting is a good thing.
I definitely think our mandatory voting system has some great benefits, especially that it makes voter suppression far more difficult. But at the end if the day, I’ve seen electors who couldn’t name two federal PM candidates or the party policies of the two main parties. What is the benefit of forcing such people into voting? They clearly don’t have an interest in making the correct decision for themselves or our state. So it simply makes the election less effective, turning it more into a gimmicky popularity spectacle than a decision making process.
