A QUICK glance at the Greater Dandenong 2005 election candidates is enough to alert the suspicions of thinking voters to the possibility that dummy candidates – “running mates” – are again being used in an attempt to manipulate the preferential voting system and trick voters into electing unwanted candidates.
This is one of the commonest forms of electoral deceit practised by unscrupulous candidates and their equally unethical fellow party members, business associates or friends.
Take note of where the least-active or most inaccessible candidates have directed their second, third and last preferences.
The perpetrators of this trickery are clearly demonstrating their personal lack of respect for the intelligence and integrity of their fellow citizens.
They have proven themselves completely untrustworthy and unfit for representative office.
Voters will have very little time on election day to figure out the ramifications of following candidates’ preference recommendations.
However, we believe Greater Dandenong voters are capable of allocating their own preferences and thereby thwarting some would-be tricksters.
If voters have a candidate they know about, like and want for their ward councillor, they must make sure that their votes really count in this person’s favour.
Here is one way to avoid tricks and to help elect your chosen candidate – vote 1 for the candidate you like best, then carefully number every other box on the ballot paper in the way you choose.
Make absolutely sure you put the person you really don’t want last.
Janet Cox,
Secretary,
Dandenong Residents
and Ratepayers Association.
AS A newcomer to local elections, this is my first time as a council candidate.
I have been both astonished and disgusted by the apparent Labor attempts to control the allocation of Independent candidates’ preferences to the benefit of party candidates.
So far, I have personally experienced two apparent attempts by the party to coerce me into numbering preferences in favour of the seemingly Phil Reed-anointed Lou Catherine.
On Thursday, a local state politician’s junior electorate officer insisted that I should give ‘Independent’ Geraldine Gonsalvez my second preference.
Geraldine is already apparently exchanging second preferences with Lou Catherine.
I refused to obey.
The next morning an incumbent female Labor councillor then attempted to persuade me to preference Lou directly.
I again refused.
I have always thought local government was there to ensure a fair go in service provision for the needs of the broad local community – and not meant to be used as a convenience for ambitious State Government underlings.
Andrew Russell,
Candidate for Noble Park Ward.
