Have you received a postal vote application form in the mail? 

Did you wonder why it was bundled with material promoting a political party? 

Or why the return address was a political party HQ, not the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)?

If you were confused, don’t be embarrassed: the AEC says the way political parties use postal vote applications is the number 1 source of complaints during election campaigns.

Alexandra Koster at SBS News has written a detailed explanation of the strange and somewhat sketchy world of postal vote applications.

Postal vote application forms, packaged with information about a political party, are “reportedly used by political parties to collect data about voters before forwarding to the AEC”.

“At first glance, the material could be mistaken for official AEC communications as there is no party branding, aside from the use of red and blue party colours.”

A multi-party parliamentary inquiry recommended cleaning up the postal vote application practice:

• Postal vote applications no longer allowed to be bundled with other materials (like party promotional materials)
• Postal vote applications to be sent straight to the AEC, not routed through a party HQ for data harvesting.

The Albanese Government neglected these reforms in favour of an unfair and rushed deal with the Liberal Party to change the laws around Australian elections. Hopefully they are revisited after this election.