Police brought in after marriage equality survey forms put up for sale online

Sep 16, 2017 by Jill

by Helen Davidson, Guardian:

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is in discussion with Australian federal police after it emerged marriage equality postal votes were being put up for sale online.

The concerns were raised in the past week as the ABS began sending ballots out to people for the upcoming marriage equality postal survey, and one appeared on eBay with a starting bid of $1,500.

There have been up to 20 instances of someone trying to sell their vote online, with one ad to “buy my vote” posted on eBay with a starting bid of $1,500, the ABC reported.

“What is this plebiscite worth to you,” the ad said. “The reason I’m selling my vote is because either way I don’t care but thought there are people who do.”

The ad has since been taken down but deputy statistician for the ABS, Jonathan Palmer, told a Senate inquiry on Friday the ABS doesn’t have a policy on how to deal with such acts, and he had asked for some cases to be referred to Australian federal police (AFP).

“In our original risk register there were some risks that required us to work well with the AFP and we’ve done some of that in risks relating to cyber security,” said Palmer. “But this particular line of fraudulent activity is not one that we, in our mitigation strategies, identified a need to liaise with the AFP earlier, so we are doing it now.”

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