Hayne
J
23.
that the witness was not permitted to vote. It is notable that s 367 uses the phrase
"not permitted to vote" rather than "prevented from voting". It follows, and no
party submitted to the contrary, that cases where an elector is not permitted to
vote must be understood to be a subset of cases where electors are prevented
from voting. The question then becomes how widely the set (of which s 367 is a
subset) should be drawn. Mr Wang allowed cases where an elector is given the
wrong ballot paper as a case of prevention from voting but drew no convincing
distinction between such a case and other cases where an elector, through official
error, submits a ballot paper which is not the subject of the determinative
scrutiny.
94
In this case, where a re-count of some ballot papers was ordered, and the
lost ballot papers should have been included within that re-count, the electors
who submitted those ballot papers did not have their ballot papers included in the
determinative scrutiny.
95
For these several reasons, the 1,370 electors who submitted ballot papers
which were lost between the fresh scrutiny and the re-count were prevented from
voting. The first separate question should be answered accordingly.
96
It follows from the proviso to s 365 that, in these petitions, where all the
petitioners allege that the lost ballot papers were not included in the re-count "on
account of the ... error of, or omission by", an officer, "the Court shall not, for the
purpose of determining whether the ... error of, or omission by, the officer did or
did not affect the result of the election, admit any evidence of the way in which
the [electors whose ballot papers were lost] intended to vote in the election".
97
Would admission in evidence of the records about the lost ballot papers be
evidence of the way in which electors who were prevented from voting "intended
to vote in the election"?
Intended to vote
98
Contrary to the submissions of Mr Wang, Mr Mead and a number of the
respondents, admitting evidence of the records made at the original and fresh
scrutinies about what voting intentions were validly expressed in the lost ballot
papers would be evidence of the way in which those electors intended to vote at
the election. It would not be evidence which would reveal how any identified or
identifiable elector intended to vote and it therefore would not be evidence which
broke the secrecy of the ballot. But once it is accepted that the prevention from
voting with which s 365 deals extends to cases of the present kind, it follows that
"evidence of the way in which the elector intended to vote" includes evidence
revealing how electors whose ballot papers were not the subject of the
determinative scrutiny intended (by their ballot papers) to vote.