The polling booth of Waggrakine seems to have delivered very abnormal results in the recent Federal election.

The website Truth Seeker, which uses "statistical and financial analysis techniques to analyse and forecast election outcomes across Australia" has reported on the unusual results from the booth that are difficult to explain and they are calling for a recount.

As you probably recall, when voting for the senate voters can either place all the numbers below the line in each box (BTL) or simply number one box above the line. Of the 1929 votes cast at Waggrakine only 1 was recorded as below the line. According to the website no similar sized booth anywhere had this low of a rate of BTL voting (see chart).

The author says comments had been made on the blog that stated "a polling place manager made an expedient decision to quickly count the ballots on the night, pending a recount..."

The author goes on to say: "I'm not saying anything is wrong about the way this booth was counted - it may be right. It just looks highly suspicious. The record indicates 1929 votes were cast, with just one ballot recorded as Below The Line. No similarly sized booth had anywhere near this low rate of BTL voting. Also, this booth had a 5.7% informal rate, compared to 2.9% for Durack generally. Interestingly, its House Informal rate was very similar to the Durack average."

"Should half of these informal ballots actually be Below The Line votes? Would this add an additional 60 ballots to the count? Will this change the result? Don't know..."

"Would conducting a full recount give us more confidence in our democratic processes? Yes."

There seems to be no good reason why Waggrakine should have nearly double the informal senate votes compared to the rest of Durack, and only have a single person who chose to vote below the line, something completely inconsistent with the rest of Durack and WA.

Given the extremely close nature of the vote count at this election, the very unusual result for Waggrakine does indeed raise eyebrows and seems to warrant further investigation.

You can read the original post here: http://originaltruthseeker.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/wa-polling-booths-discrepancies.html#more