THERE were more informal voters than ever last year in the Mildura electorate, which appears to have bucked a statewide trend.
The Victorian Electoral Commission has analysed every incorrectly marked ballot paper from the 2022 state election.
On a statewide average, informal Legislative Assembly votes fell for the first time since 1996, going from 5.83 per cent in 2018 to 5.53 per cent last year.
When Mildura had five candidates stand for election in 2018, the district had less informal voters than the state average; 1996 of the 37,207 votes, or 5.09 per cent, were informal.
When Mildura had 11 candidates in 2022, the most candidates in its history, the district was well above average; 3096 of the 41,236 votes, or 7.51 per cent, were informal.
Electoral commissioner Sven Bluemmel said there was a strong correlation between the number of candidates and the level of informality.
“In 2022, there was a record number of candidates standing … which prevented a bigger decrease in informal voting; some districts had up to 15 candidates,” Mr Bluemmel said.
“Accidental informality” rose sharply in electorates where there were more than 10 candidates on the ballot paper.
The rate of informal voting in Mildura has followed this correlation.
According to unofficial records, informal voting was at its lowest at the 1947 election, when only two candidates stood and there were 0.8 per cent informal votes.
In 2014, when nine candidates stood, the second most in seat history, 7.05 per cent of the vote was informal.
Mildura does not have a substantial history of informal voting. Records suggest informal voting sat below 4 per cent in all but six of its 33 elections.
Exceptions included the 1935 election, where four Country Party candidates and an independent ran against each other, and the 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 elections.
Making assumptions based on markings on the 2022 ballot papers, the VEC found that most informal votes, 56 per cent, showed a preference that indicated non-deliberate informality, while a strong minority, 41 per cent, were apparently deliberate.
Consistent with previous elections, blank ballot papers were the biggest category of informal votes, 21.64 per cent of the total.
Voters who numbered only one box made up 17.44 per cent of informal votes.
Numbering errors including sequence errors were 14.64 per cent and insufficient numbering 13.36 per cent, while 8.95 per cent ticked or crossed boxes and 6.62 per cent either crossed out the ballot paper or drew vague scrawls, anatomical drawings, smiley faces or pictures of donkeys.
The VEC revealed that 13,050 votes across Victoria, 6.11 per cent of the informal votes, featured individual writing.
According to the report, these votes included a “fair number of statements” by “sovereign citizens” stating phrases such as “No candidate suitable to follow my will”.
Denunciations of Premier Daniel Andrews and COVID lockdowns were also frequent features of informal votes, and many added a joke candidate such as “me” or “Mickey Mouse”.
Conspiracy theories were also more evident than previous elections, with some voters writing “the election is fraudulent and unconstitutional treason” or “it’s pencil so you can erase”.
When assessing the frequency of informal votes by area, Wemen was the only polling booth in the Mildura electorate to have a lower percentage than the state average.
Of the 45 Wemen ballots only one was informal, 2.22 per cent of that booth’s votes.
The highest frequency of informal votes came from Beulah in Yarriambiack Shire, where 15.09 per cent, or about one in every seven votes cast, were informal.
Cullulleraine was not far behind. Of 75 votes, 11 were informal, or 14.67 per cent.
The second biggest election-day booth in the electorate, Irymple, had 104 informal votes out of 1091, or 9.53 per cent.
Red Cliffs in comparison had 7.56 per cent informal votes, the lowest for booths where more than 1000 votes were counted.
Informal votes
A breakdown of 2022’s informal state election votes by booths in the Mildura electorate:
Voting centres, informal (%)
Wemen 2.22
Cardross 5.84
Cabarita 6.25
Mildura Ranfurly 6.72
Nichols Point 6.72
Mildura South 6.88
Mildura West 7.03
Boundary Bend 7.27
Murrayville 7.51
Red Cliffs 7.56
Sunnycliffs 7.74
Ouyen 8.46
Mildura 8.54
Manangatang 9.04
Merbein 9.04
Nangiloc 9.14
Koorlong 9.15
Irymple 9.53
Mildura City Central 9.71
Mildura Deakin 9.95
Robinvale 10.14
Underbool 12.26
Piangil 12.33
Cullulleraine 14.67
Buloke votes (avg) 9.10
Yarriambiack votes (avg) 11.33
Postal votes 4.50
Provisional votes 6.91
Early votes 7.05
Absent votes 7.88
Mildura district votes 7.51
