Push to ban sneaky move politicians use to scrape data
If independents have their way, politicians collecting Australians’ data through opaque postal voting application letters could become a thing of the past.
Independent MP Kate Chaney is pushing for political parties to be banned from sending postal ballot applications in a way that misleads Australians into thinking their data has been sent directly to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).
“Our democracy is precious and fragile, and we must do everything we can to protect it,” Ms. Chaney said as she introduced the private member bill in the House of Representatives on Monday.
“Australians want fair and transparent elections; they trust our election processes, which include postal voting.”
Political parties, candidates, and third parties are allowed to encourage voters to vote by mail through the distribution and collection of postal ballot applications.
In the 2025 federal election, the Australian Electoral Commission received just over 316,000 paper applications from third parties, accounting for almost three-quarters of all paper applications.
There has also been an increase in the number of people viewing the Commission’s postal application form from third-party websites.
Political parties often send unsolicited campaign materials in bulk during elections.
This includes letters encouraging a person to apply for a mail-in ballot without clearly stating that the application is not being sent directly back to the election commission.
“This is when it gets dangerous,” Ms. Chaney said.
“The processing center is not the AEC. If they were transparent, this processing center should be called the data collection center of politicians.
“The voter unknowingly sends his name, address, date of birth, phone number, email address, security question and answer, and a copy of his signature to a political entity.”
Ms. Chaney’s colleague, Monique Ryan, questioned whether voters would have returned their mail-in ballot applications if they had known their data had been scraped by political entities.
The election commission has issued a warning about the use of unsolicited third-party forms during the election campaign due to privacy concerns and processing delays.
More than 2.5 million people applied to vote by mail in May’s federal election, and 2.3 million people returned their ballots by mail, according to the election commission.
