Election officials lodge their protest Fairfield City Champion

Election officials lodge their protest
Fairfield City Champion, April 4, 2007
Isabell Petrinic

EIGHT election officials have written a joint letter of complaint to the NSW Electoral Commission about the working conditions at the Canley Heights Public School's polling booth on March 24.

Janice Le, from Canley Heights, said she worked 17 hours and was only given two five to 10-minute breaks and one toilet break.

"In the letter of offer, we were told we would finish at 10pm at the latest,'' said Ms Le, who acted as ordinary vote issuing officer and ballot box guard on the day of election.

However, counting of the more than 3300 ordinary votes and 500 declaration votes ended at 12.15am. Ms Le worked as an official at the 2004 Federal Election, which didn't go over time.

"We finished at 10pm [and] we were given an appropriate amount of breaks,'' she said. ``Considering the ordeal I went through, I don't think my pay package of $289.38 (gross) plus $21.90 meal allowance is justifiable this will be the last time I work for the NSW Electoral Commission,'' Ms Le told the Champion yesterday.

Rebecca Summers, 20, from Canley Heights, was a first-time official. "I had a one 10-minute break the whole day,'' said Ms Summers, who was hired as a declaration vote issuing officer. Ordinary vote issuing officer Kathy Curran said her elderly frail mother was "ready to call the police'' when she couldn't get in touch with Ms Curran around 11pm.

"She had rung the Electoral Commission but only received a recorded message so she walked a good 10 to 15 minutes by herself in a dangerous area to check if I was okay,'' Ms Curran said.

Ms Summer said: ``I think it would have been justified if we'd all left at 10pm.''

In fact, one officer talked of leaving around 10.30pm but was convinced by the group, to stick it out.

"I told him to honour his contract and that we could seek justice later,'' Ms Le said.

The group has demanded a letter of apology from Electoral Commissioner,
Colin Barry, monetary compensation and an assurance this would not
happen again.

Fairfield Cr Thang Ngo wrote to the NSW Electoral Commission about the conditions of another polling booth in the Fowler electorate the Cabramatta Police Youth Club.

Cr Ngo said "tempers were really frayed'' at the booth in Railway Parade, with voters waiting up to an hour outside in the sun to vote.

Cr Ngo worried about the participation rate at the coming Federal Election.

"We already have one of the highest rates of informal voting,'' he lamented.

Ms Curran said a large number of people were not registered on the electoral roll either.

A spokesman for the NSW Electoral Commission said it had not received the complaint but would look into the matter.