16 July 2012

Pirate Party rubbed out by Elections ACT

| johnboy
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Elections ACT have the bad news that the Pirate Party has missed out on registration:

“The Pirate Party Australia (ACT Branch) has missed out on registration as a political party in the ACT as it did not submit a list of 100 members who were on the ACT electoral roll,” the ACT Electoral Commissioner, Phil Green said today.

“The Pirate Party ACT submitted its application on Saturday 30 June 2012, just before the party registration deadline of midnight 30 June,” Mr Green said.

“However, the application has been refused registration, as my delegate is not satisfied that the party had 100 members who were electors at the time the party’s application was submitted.

“As the application to register the party was received very close to the deadline, there was no time for the party to resubmit the application with the names of more members before the deadline passed. This is an unfortunate consequence of leaving the submission of its application to the last minute,” Mr Green said

But it’s not necessarily the end:

“Although the Pirate Party ACT will not be officially registered for the 2012 ACT election, the party may still put forward candidates for election and campaign on behalf of those candidates, identifying them as candidates of the party. However, non-registration means that the party cannot use the name of the party, or have candidates grouped together, on the ballot paper. The party’s candidates would require 20 nominators who are ACT electors and would be listed on the ballot paper in the “ungrouped” column on the ballot paper,” Mr Green.

In other election news a
Marion Lê Social Justice Party has thrown its hat in the ring.

Here’s the best background I can find on Marion Lê

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I don’t know why they didn’t just rip and upload someone else’s membership list.

bitzermaloney said :

You didn’t think of going to another polling station?

I thought of it, but suspected it would have been quite a naughty thing to do.

bitzermaloney12:45 pm 17 Jul 12

p1 said :

johnboy said :

Word from a pirate is they submitted 112 names and had 16 knocked back (mostly to on the ACT electoral roll, a real bastard of a thing for parties with younger memberships)

Or anyone. I sent in the usual change of address thingy once. At the next election I was on the role twice, once at my new address, once at my old one.

They refused to let me vote twice though.

You didn’t think of going to another polling station?

johnboy said :

Word from a pirate is they submitted 112 names and had 16 knocked back (mostly to on the ACT electoral roll, a real bastard of a thing for parties with younger memberships)

Or anyone. I sent in the usual change of address thingy once. At the next election I was on the role twice, once at my new address, once at my old one.

They refused to let me vote twice though.

farnarkler said :

Seems you had forgotten to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Having 120 names, just in case, would’ve been better. Hopefully next year there’ll be a zombie defence party to give you a bit of opposition.

We did hope for the best by getting the application submitted.
We also planned for the worst before went into the recruitment campaign with the backup plan of going to the ballot with ungrouped (independent) candidates should this have occurred.

We will be amending our application as we have had more members sign up since the June 30th deadline, and it should be processed as soon as possible after the election.

It won’t change our campaign much, it just means that you won’t see Pirate Party ACT as a party grouping on the ballot.

AsparagusSyndrome11:40 pm 16 Jul 12

I went to a pirate party once, when I was a kid – it was one of my mates’ birthday parties. The next year he had disco party, but I hated disco so I came as an oil sheik. Best I could do with an old bedsheet, thongs, a dressing gown cord, a black occy strap, and sunglasses. I never was good at sticking to the theme.

farnarkler said :

Seems you had forgotten to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Having 120 names, just in case, would’ve been better. Hopefully next year there’ll be a zombie defence party to give you a bit of opposition.

They put down every single name that they could, and the application was submitted at 11:57pm from memory – best possible effort.

And yeah, they can (and have said they will) still have representatives on the ballot but they won’t be identified as “Pirate Party” candidates on the ballot paper. So if anyone wants to vote for them they just need to educate themselves as to who to vote for before entering the booth.

Seems you had forgotten to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Having 120 names, just in case, would’ve been better. Hopefully next year there’ll be a zombie defence party to give you a bit of opposition.

I can also confirm that we will be running candidates regardless of registration status.
Expect to see an announcement in the next few weeks once we complete our selection process.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd5:03 pm 16 Jul 12

johnboy said :

Word from a pirate is they submitted 112 names and had 16 knocked back (mostly to on the ACT electoral roll, a real bastard of a thing for parties with younger memberships)

4 names short. Harsh. Really is too bad.

I can confirm that Pirate Party ACT did very narrowly miss out on having 100 members verified as being on the ACT Electoral Roll as of the 30th of June, due to a small number of members being missing from the roll for various reasons.

I’m looking to see if there is any way we can appeal the decision, however we always knew that getting the registration through by the June 30th deadline was going to be difficult given the position we were in.

bitzermaloney said :

…In all honesty she’s better placed in her current role to provide a better life for asylum seekers, however I think she has gotten on the wrong boat unless she wants to argue issues like the value of a light rail to Gunners with the our friends Joy, Caroline, Alistair and co.

Ba dum tish! :p

Word from a pirate is they submitted 112 names and had 16 knocked back (mostly to on the ACT electoral roll, a real bastard of a thing for parties with younger memberships)

bitzermaloney2:32 pm 16 Jul 12

While understanding that our current immigration legislation is crapola and wouldn’t be too dissimilar under a Fed Liberal grubbyming, does Marion understand that this is the ACT Government… not the Feds?

For once I’d like a candidate to put their hand up and run a campaign for LOCAL government on LOCAL issues.

In all honesty she’s better placed in her current role to provide a better life for asylum seekers, however I think she has gotten on the wrong boat unless she wants to argue issues like the value of a light rail to Gunners with the our friends Joy, Caroline, Alistair and co.

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Hang ‘im from the yardarm! Seriously though, what a shame. I was really looking forward to having an interesting campaign for a change.

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