11 Facts About Langer vote

Langer vote was a style of voting in the Australian electoral system designed to avoid the requirement to express preferences for all candidates without the vote being rejected as informal.

In 1987 Harold Van Moorst and Langer were part of "The Coalition Against Poverty and Unemployment" and were urging people to either not vote at the election on 11 July 1987 to deliberately vote informally or informing electors of the effect of section 270 of the Electoral Act, set out in a document headed "How not to give preferences" so that electors could avoid voting for the major parties.

Van Moorst and Langer did have some measure of success however in that Vincent J held that it was not an offence to vote informally, nor to inform voters as to the effect of s 270 of the Electoral Act, holding that.

All of the Court held that a Langer vote was a valid vote under the then electoral laws.

Beach J found that Langer vote 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.

Langer vote made it clear to the Court that he did not intend to comply with the order and immediately proceeded outside the court where he distributed leaflets contrary to the Court order.

On 14 February 1996, Beach J found that Langer vote was in contempt of court and would continue to breach the order unless he was prevented from doing so.

Langer vote appealed to the Federal Court challenging the order of the Supreme Court.

Langer vote argued that s240 did not require elector write numbers consecutively and he was therefore not advocating a breach of s240.

Langer vote appealed against his conviction for contempt and the appeal was heard by the same full court.

Amnesty International described Langer vote as Australia's first prisoner of conscience for over 20 years, alleging that his imprisonment was a breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.