Text of a letter written by Dr Amy McGrath following a media release issued by the Australian Electoral Commissioner.

The media release was in response to a debate on Brisbane radio.

14 August 2004

To the Australian Electoral Commissioner

You have denounced me as a liar in your media release of 30 July 2004 following my debate on Steven Austin's 11am ABC Queensland program with three others - Margo Kingston, John Woodley and Senator Len Harris - all of whom said they agreed with me. You alleged we were making "unsupported claims". Four of your supporting arguments, namely 1, 2, 5 and 7, applied to me.

YOU SAY "The AEC's job is much more than the huge logistical task of setting up more than 7,000 polling places on election day. Our role also embraces affirming the standards and values embodied in the spirit of the Commonwealth Electoral Act"

FACT I recognised your "huge logistical task" by praising the Divisional Returning Officers who are the work force who make it work, during the Queensland program. Your interpretation of "affirming" appears to be to insist that no one in the press, radio or TV should believe a word I say. Are you driven to attack me because I argue outsourcing the AEC's electoral information centre to Centrelink creates an opportunity to stack the electoral roll before and after the close of the roll?

YOU ASSERT "nobody hacked into the AEC's computer system at the 1993 election. An individual was detected hacking into the AEC's computer system in 1991/2 and prosecuted. At no stage did the hacker have access to key systems such as the election management system or the electoral roll."

FACT A Brisbane man, Timothy Cooper, secured access into the AEC's systems on two separate days in January 1993 through a telephone of an employee of the Brisbane head office and via password, reached the root account which enabled him to alter data. His intrusion caused disruption continually during the ballot count and for weeks either side of the election. I have a copy of the AEC's own submission to the Brisbane District Court when he was tried and pleaded guilty for this office late December 1996. An account of this trial, published in the Australian National Review provoked a letter in response from an AEC consultant, Mr Charnworth, who said Cooper had not intruded into the roll but "only into the ballot count."  The AEC's computer system broke down all through the ballot count and was restricted for weeks before and after the election. The AEC did not inform either the Minister or the Parliament that hacking had occurred until obliged to admit to it when I and a Divisional Returning Officer notified them.

YOU STATE "that the AEC has outsourced its call centre before (at the 2001 election). At the next election the AEC will be using Centrelink to provide an enquiry service because that government organisation is able to meet the AEC's high standards of customer service, security and integrity."

FACT The pilot in 2001 was quite different from the one proposed in that it operated on AEC premises under the supervision of experienced electoral officials at all times. Terminals linked to the mainframe database, used by hundreds of casuals, secured merely by Reader Acccess only which can be by-passed by passwords, cannot be secured with the same integrity as on AEC premises. REmoving them to Centrelink creates a dangerous gateway to fraud.

YOU SAID "The 1997 redistribution (or change to electoral boundaries) in Queensland was required by law due to a change in the entitlement for that state. The process was carried out strictly according to legal provisions. Political outcomes cannot be, and are not, considered by a Redistribution Committee."

FACT The recognised principle of redistribution has long been community of interest. Transferring half the Vietnamese community of 20,000 into Oxley at the time of Pauline Hanson's election, thereby splitting it in two, was not in accordance with that principle.

YOU CLAIM "In accordance with legislation, the AEC has been conducting regular roll reviews, including targeted habitation checks since that time. This had been more effective at tracking address changes of a very mobile population than conducting a biennial door knock."

FACT You confirm my statement that there has not been a habitation review (biennnial door-knock) in Queensland since 1997. You state you now rely on office-bound computerised data-matching known as Continuous Roll Review (CRU) backed up by "spot-checking" on the ground. Three Queensland Divisional Returning Officers told the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) "Pyne" enquiry that CRU had caused the electoral roll to be less accurate than before, and to cost more with associated repeated mail-outs.

YOU SAY "the National Audit Office concluded that overall the electoral roll was of high integrity."

FACT Clauses 4.1 to 4.3 qualify this conclusion. Clause 4.21: "There was no evidence the (electoral) register was accurate or consistently up to date across all divisions." Clause 4.63: "One reason given for not undertaking this (audit) as a national project was that some Australian Electoral Officers and State Commissioners would not support the initiative in their states."

YOU SAY "In every Parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of federal elections since 1984, the JSCEM has found that there has been no widespread and organised electoral fraud."

FACT The JSCEM can only pass judgement on what the AEC tells it. THe AEC always says there is little fraud, and never any fraud that changes an election. What the AEC does not tell the JSCEM is it honestly would not know, except when it admitted once in 1993 that it could only one out of ten ways of fraudulent multiple voting - the chief method of stacking up false votes. Moreover, it does not have the staff, resources or will to pursue complaints of fraud. Nor does the Federal Police..

YOU SAY "The JSCEM has also issued a separate report (the Pyne inquiry) into the integrity of the electoral roll which found no evidence of systematic electoral fraud."

FACT This inquiry into the Queensland electoral scandals found no evidence of systematic electoral fraud because those who anonymously admitted to the Brisbane Courier Mail they were guilty of working in teams to cast false votes in several federal and state elections, and notably in the Fisher electorate in 1987, could not be subpoenad. In any case, as the Federal Police found, all documents had been destroyed within six months of that election. There were six anonymous whistleblowers and one open one, whose interviews were all published at length in that newspaper..

It is intolerable that the AEC always falls back on the argument, that any criticism of its administration undermines confidence in the electoral system as a whole, in order to destroy any public confidence in critics, like myself, who expose potential avenues for fraud in good faith.

(Signed) Amy McGrath