A group of city council candidates have written to SA Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry requesting that he publicly report on the findings of his investigation into potential fraudulent voting activity on or before this Saturday’s scrutiny and count.

In their letter addressed to Sherry last week and seen by InDaily, the candidates called for the report to be “thorough, timely and transparent”.

“Without public confidence that the outcome of our electoral process is free from electoral misconduct/fraud, participation in local elections is at risk of significant erosion and the trust in the people’s elected councillors and mayor will be irreparably damaged,” they wrote.

Signatories included Lord Mayoral hopefuls Sandy Verschoor, Vivek Gupta and Steven Kelly, alongside 14 area, north, central and south ward candidates.

It follows reports of an alleged voter scam targeting international students in the CBD.

Sherry met with police last Wednesday to determine whether police assistance was necessary to investigate a complaint regarding ballot packs in the city council area.

The candidates requested that Sherry report on the “key investigatory steps” taken, which offences may have been committed, and the number of potentially affected ineligible ballots.

They also asked for any candidates involved in “election misconduct” to be named and removed from Saturday’s count.

“Should voters believe fraudulent voting activity is occurring without being properly addressed by ECSA, voter participation in local council elections is likely to fall further still in future elections and the outcome of this and future elections will be irreparably tarnished,” they wrote.

Lord Mayoral candidate Jane Lomax-Smith has also written to Sherry, calling for “more detailed examination and authentication” of votes – particularly those cast by central ward electors.

The former Lord Mayor and Rann Government Minister stated she believed that some voters may have fallen victim to potential “illegal practices”, following reports of an alleged voter scam targeting international students in the CBD.

Lomax-Smith questioned whether there had been “possible intervention”, which may have resulted in voting packs not reaching some residents and traders.

“I believe that unfortunately, international students are not the only enrolled voters in the City of Adelaide who appear to have fallen victim to potential illegal activity,” she wrote.

“A number of voters, some in adjoining properties, have complained to me personally that they have not received voting packs.

“Having recently visited Chinatown shops in the central ward with a translator, I believe many electors did not receive their packs or know that they were eligible to vote.” 

In her letter, Lomax-Smith asked Sherry to consider hiring handwriting experts to assist with verifying votes.

She also asked for the Electoral Commission to keep voting slips with the ballot packs for “potential tendering in the Court of Disputed Returns”.

“These will also be required as part of the chain of proof for the SA Police investigation which must be pursued,” she wrote.

Lomax-Smith told InDaily that her suggested measures would help the Electoral Commission to identify whether one elector had cast multiple votes.

“If there are really multiple voting packs with the same signature that is not within the legal voting scheme and it is not acceptable because it has to be a different person for each vote,” she said.

“If the electoral officers have difficulty identifying the signatures and the matter was not resolved… it would, I think, be useful for the Electoral Commissioner to examine visually the votes from perhaps the same house, or the same building, or the same block of shops or the same student accommodation premises.

“If many of those signatures appear similar, they could be verified with a handwriting expert if staff are unable to identify those signatures.”

Lomax-Smith also asked the Electoral Commissioner to “quarantine” votes from the central ward from the count of other wards.

In her letter, she wrote: “It would appear that most of the alleged illegal practices relate to student accommodation and businesses in this area”.

But Lomax-Smith told InDaily that she didn’t mean for all central wards votes to be quarantined, rather, only those which were cast by voters in buildings suspected to have been targeted by potential electoral fraud.

“I’m not saying the whole of the ward should be quarantined – just the areas that are suspect where there are accusations,” she said.

“Clearly the Electoral Commissioner has a series of sites that have been identified and it’s for him to find a safe process, but I think that he might well… decide to give special attention to those bundles of packs.”

Sherry declined to comment on the candidate requests, but a spokesperson from ECSA confirmed an investigation was underway into a complaint about ballot packs in the city council area.

The spokesperson said ECSA did not comment on the progress of ongoing investigations.

“ECSA has processes in place to ensure the integrity of the election,” they said.

Local Government Minister Geoff Brock told parliament last week that he had not received any “substantiated claims” about accusations of vote tampering.

“If there are any anomalies, the Electoral Commissioner will be able to handle that quite adequately,” he said.

“I am very sure that we all have confidence in the Electoral Commissioner to make certain that everything is aboveboard and legal.”

Voting in this year’s local government elections closes on Thursday, ahead of Saturday’s scrutiny and count.

Latest data from the SA Electoral Commission shows so far, 2963 ballots have been returned for the Adelaide City Council central ward, representing 21.3 per cent of eligible voters.

The central ward so far has the lowest proportion of returned ballots out of the three city council wards.