WALLIS AJ
voters had been registered in ward 13. In response to this complaint the IEC did not
analyse the documents or engage with the specific allegations made by Mr Kham. Its
deponent simply annexed a single REC 1 form from the “Maricana” bundle showing a
physical address, albeit not one with a street name or house number, and said that
there was a physical address and that this complied with the legislation. But this was
not a response to the pith of the allegations made by Mr Kham, which was that voters
from this informal settlement had been registered in a ward other than that in which
they were ordinarily resident.
[71]
No proper response was forthcoming to another of Mr Kham’s complaints, this
time in relation to ward 20. He produced and annexed to his affidavit a bundle titled
“Ward 20” and said that in these forms no street names or numbers were mentioned
on the forms, merely the name of a suburb. He pointed out that this was irregular
because on either side of certain streets there are two different wards, presumably
because the street constitutes the ward boundary. In other instances only an extension
of a suburb was mentioned or there was reference to an informal settlement called
“Baipei”, whereas there is more than one settlement with that name in various wards.
His conclusion was that more than 350 voters on the segment of the roll in use in
ward 20 were resident outside the ward. These specific and documented complaints
attracted the cursory response that with regard to ward 20 “the requirements for the
registration of voters as set out in Chapter 2 of the Electoral Act were adhered to”.
[72]
It is unnecessary to try and tease out the implications of this any further. On
the IEC’s own investigation there were a number of registrations of voters in the
affected wards that should not have occurred. To that extent the by-elections were
conducted on the basis of inaccurate voters’ rolls and some at least of the wrongly
registered voters voted. In other words there was a breach of the principle that only
those legally entitled to do so should be permitted to vote. It may well have been
more extensive than the IEC report indicated but on any footing it was not
insignificant and occurred across all the wards where by-elections took place.
38