Austria’s parliament has been forced to cancel its October 2 presidential election and run it again December 4 after postal vote envelopes were found to be not sticky enough, leaving opportunity open for tampering.
The result of the October 2 election saw the Greens candidate achieve a razor thin majority over the far right anti-immigrant candidate. A new election could see the right winger win as anti-immigrant sentiment is rising strongly across Europe, which would have a significant impact on refugee strategy.
At least 500 damaged papers have been detected so far. The printing company KBPrintcom, which was commissioned by the interior ministry, declined to comment on the issue.
The saga – dubbed gluegate – adds another element to the ongoing debate on whether modern countries including Australia should switch to online voting in elections or stick to traditional printed ballots.
Craig Wright, general manager of Sydney’s D&D Mailing Services says the blame should lie with the mailing house who sent out the damaged product.
Wright says, “Even if you have a poor product supplied to you a manufacturer, I would say the mailing house is still at fault.
“I have not heard of this ever happening,” he continues, “But anything is possible I suppose.”
Wright says cases like this should reinforce the use of quality, Australian made products, and for mailing houses to perform manual checks.
He says, “Elections use big quantities, so governments may commission electoral envelopes from overseas countries that produce them cheaper with less quality. Also stock checking at certain mail houses may not be stringent, and that is where you would come across any issues.”
General manager of Sydney’s Active Mail, Luke Pearsall says although all parties involved would likely deflect the blame, he believes damaged envelopes are the fault of the manufacturer.
“The reason this has happened is because the envelope manufacturer has not put enough glue on the envelope flap. When it is run through the mailing machine where water is being applied to seal the envelope, there is not enough glue to do this,” he says.
Pearsall says human invention at the end of the line may also fail, “The sorter has to check it is sealed, but it may not be caught because the envelope will appear to be sealed initially but when dried it will fall apart.”
In the wake of gluegate, Austria’s popular anti-immigration Freedom Party (FPOe) has called for the abolition of postal votes.
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