The AEC needs a radical overhaul and it's powers need to be beefed up. It really is a toothless tiger currently. With so much happening through social media these days the AEC needs more wide ranging powers and greater ability to penalise those seeking to exploit elections with misinformation and outright lies and smear campaigns etc.
The LNP and those associated with them ran some pretty grubby and dubious slogans throughout this recent election with references to Death Taxes and Car taxes etc being blatant lies to exploit people's gullablity.
"The Australian Electoral Commission, which is bound by highly prescriptive laws, said it was powerless to act. The high court has ruled it has no remit to stop content that misleads a voter on who to vote for.It can only act on “conduct which affects the process of casting a vote”.As long as the signs were properly sourced and six metres from the polling place, they were fine to stay, the AEC ruled. It was perhaps the most egregious example of deceptive political advertising to surface during the campaign, and raised questions about the powers parliament has afforded the AEC to prevent misleading and deceptive conduct."
"It’s up to parliament Sawer says there is a clear argument that the AEC should at least be given the power to stop political campaigners mimicking it.“While the Commonwealth Electoral Act is already 639 pages long, I do think there should be a prohibition on political advertisements pretending to be from the Electoral Commission through use of the same or a very similar Pantone, as in Chisholm,” she says.The losing independent in Kooyong, Oliver Yates, has said he may take the case of the Chinese-language signs to the court of disputed returns. His lawyers believe they gave an “emphatic direction on how to vote” and used language indicating voters did not have a choice.“There is a very real risk the reader would think they are being told by the AEC that, to record a valid vote, they must vote 1 for Liberal,” Yates’s lawyer, Michael Bradley, says.Que and the AAA fiercely opposed Gladys Liu – the Liberals’ successful Chisholm candidate – and remain furious that she benefited from the tactic.Even without a legal challenge, the issue is almost certain to be explored in the standard election inquiry held by the joint standing committee on electoral matters.The AEC itself has repeatedly stressed it can only act within the bounds of “highly prescriptive” laws. Changing the legislation, it says, is up to parliament."
