Nov

20

US style election-lawyering

November 20, 2007 | 4 Comments | Joshua Gans

According to reports, the Liberal party is going to bring in the lawyers after election day. This is the type of thing we have seen in the US since 2000. I thought we had an Electoral Commission to deal with this stuff.


Comments

4 Responses to “US style election-lawyering”

  1. Jeremy on November 20th, 2007 8:01 pm

    The real problem is that the Constitution’s election qualification rule is stupid. It effectively requires that anyone who runs for election must first quit – and not just merely go on leave from – any government job (e.g. teaching) that they have. So, all ten (or whatever) candidates in each seat must quit such jobs and, if they stuff it up inadvertently but still get ‘elected’, then the election must be held again. The obvious sensible rule would be to give anyone elected a grace period to quit. Alas, our constitution is so hard to amend that sensible changes like that will never happen.

    Yes, it’d be nice if this were left to the AEC, but ultimately only the courts have the final say on whether the Constitution has been complied with or not. So, the election may get decided in our useless High Court.

  2. Oz Election at John Barrdear on November 20th, 2007 9:18 pm

    [...] have, as Joshua Gans puts it, “US style election-lawyering” from the Coalition, who have released legal advise [...]

  3. Running for Parliament? Better quit your job. « They didn’t get this username before me! on November 21st, 2007 1:23 am

    [...] is what? So that members of Parliament, whilst in power, don’t have a conflict of interest. Jeremy’s suggestion on Joshua Gans’ blog, of letting such candidates quit their jobs after winning the election is quite a good solution. [...]

  4. wilful on November 21st, 2007 3:32 pm

    Of course, it’s rally just a low-rent, low impact Liberal attempted smear, that has fallen flat on it’s face. It’s a pity the ABC chose to run it so quickly.