Despite this however Starke J held that the Electoral Act "absolutely and imperatively" required that a voter use consecutive numbers so that the votes were properly rejected as informal.
[7] In 1983 the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform was concerned at the informality rate for Senate voting.
The Australian Electoral Commission applied to the Supreme Court of Victoria for an order preventing Van Moorst from encouraging people not to vote.
It is not integral that they must choose between the candidates or that, contrary to the dictates of their consciences, they must vote for persons who they may regard as being totally unacceptable to fill the offices for which they present themselves.
Murray J declined to make either of the declarations, holding they merely sought to repeat the effect of the judgement of Vincent J and that they had no standing to seek an order requiring the Australian Electoral Commission to publish them.
(1) A person must not, during the relevant period in relation to a House of Representatives election under this Act, print, publish or distribute, or cause, permit or authorise to be printed, published or distributed, any matter or thing with the intention of encouraging persons voting at the election to fill in a ballot paper otherwise than in accordance with section 240.
[14]The purpose of s 270 was said to be that voters "do not have their votes discarded because of an unintentional mistake", but that s 329A was necessary to ensure that "people do not go out and intentionally frustrate the will of this Parliament by advocating an optional preferential system".
On 11 March 1993 Deane J refused to make the declaration sought and referred the matter for consideration by the Full Court.
The Commonwealth was represented by the Solicitor-General, Gavan Griffith QC, and argued that s 240 required full preferential voting and that s 270 was a savings provision that was intended to apply to unintentional errors.
[6]: at p 330 Each of McHugh J,[6]: at p 339 and Gummow J,[6]: at p 351 held that the purpose of s 329A was to prevent the full preference system of voting from being undermined.
Dawson J dissented on the basis that the constitutional power of the Parliament to make laws about elections for the House of Representatives arose from sections 31 and 51(xxxvi) of the Constitution,[18] which meant the law needed to be for the purpose of electing members of parliament, who must be "directly chosen by the people.
[19] The purpose of s 329A was not incidental to the election of representatives but rather to prevent the dissemination of information about how a person could cast a vote in a particular - and permissible - form.
On Monday 5 February 1996 the Australian Electoral Commission commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of Victoria, seeking an order to prevent Langer from breaching s329A.
[20] Beach J found that Langer had published material with the intention of encouraging people to fill in their ballot papers otherwise than in accordance with s240 of the Electoral Act and granted an order to prevent him from continuing to do so.
"[24]: at p 129 The Electoral Commission submitted that its interests were not served by the imprisonment of Langer after the date of the election on 2 March 1996.
[25] Black CJ, Lockhart & Beaumont JJ held that the finding that Langer intended to breach the order was fully justified and upheld his conviction for contempt.
In 1998 section 329A was repealed and the Parliament attempted to make the Langer voting method invalid by amendments to the Electoral Act.
Langer-style ballots are typically numbered so that, at a point chosen by the elector, the preferences stop or begin to repeat (for example, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3. .