Victoria’s Local Government elections in 2012 were marred by poor voter turnout and political bad behaviour, now the Local Governance Association has released their report on what went wrong.

The post mortem into the 2012 elections have found one in four voters failed to participate, and that democratic participation should be bolstered to improve representation in the region.

The Victorian Local Governance Association has released an issues paper for stage two of its ‘Strengthening democracy: Improving local government elections’ program, placing some blame on the state’s Electoral Commission, saying they received “…a large number [of complaints] related to allegations about candidate conduct whether in breach of the LG Act and/or of a criminal or civil nature. This is a significant increase on the 12 complaints received about candidate conduct at the previous local government elections in 2008.”  

The VLGA seem far-reaching in their efforts to fix local polling, investigating a number of issues from the information candidates provide on themselves and their opponents, to the $250 fee required to nominate for candidacy. They are also investigating a lack of media coverage in the lead up to Election Day.

The issues paper and details on how to submit a response can be found at www.vlga.org.au 

The closing date for submissions to be lodged is Friday 26 July 2013, 5pm.