Voters - as well as the Australian Electoral Commission have raised concerns over political parties sending and receiving postal voting applications from voters which contain personal information.
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According to an AEC spokesperson, it is legal for political parties "to send postal vote applications to voters, and for the applications to be returned to the parties".
The party is required to then forward it to the AEC as soon as practical, and the AEC is responsible for sending a postal voting pack directly to the voter.
That postal voting pack is then returned to the AEC for voting.
However, the AEC reminded voters that it is quicker and easier to apply for a postal vote directly through the AEC website.
At the last federal election, about 72 per cent of postal vote applications were requested and submitted directly through the AEC (including online applications, paper applications, and general postal votes) and the remaining 28 per cent was conducted through the parties.
Canberra voters have been sent postal vote applications from both Liberal ACT senator Zed Seselja and the Labor member for Bean, David Smith.
Both letters contain the official postal vote application form, but it appears on the back of a party flyer. The letters also contain reply-paid envelopes addressed back to their offices.
The letter from Senator Seselja also contains a QR code that leads to an online postal vote form hosted by the Liberal Party, and states at the bottom "As the security of external systems cannot be assured, the AEC does not accept any liability for unauthorised interception of electronic communications associated with the use of this form."
One recipient of a Zed Seselja letter called it "shady" and an "intelligence-gathering activity".
"It might be legal, but it's certainly not ethical," he said.
He made the choice to send the letter back to the senator in the reply-paid envelope, explaining: "To have them have to pay for that to go back to them takes away from their funding, takes away from their resources, and hopefully discourages them from continuing to do it."
Other Canberrans have taken more creative approaches, including mailing back glitter and other candidates' flyers.
One voter said she was particularly concerned about the security questions that are asked, such as school names, the make and model of voters' cars and their children's names. She said she did not feel comfortable giving that level of personal information to a political party.
Another recipient, who works in IT, said he was worried about the security of the information in the hands of political parties, as it could easily be stolen.
"There's a lot of people, young and old, that don't realise what risk they're putting themselves in, and particularly that form, which has got everything about you. So I would think it is bad practice that needs to be called out," he said.
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Political parties are excluded from the Privacy Act, and there is no law against them copying information from the forms sent to them.
ANU Associate Professor Vanessa Teague said parties do this for marketing purposes.
"When they get the information officially from the electoral roll, from the Electoral Commission, they're quite restricted in what they're allowed to do with that information. Whereas if you voluntarily give it to them, then those strong rules about the electoral roll don't apply," she said.
Both the Liberal and Labor parties were approached for comment.
- You can apply directly for postal voting via the official AEC website at forms.aec.gov.au/PostalVoteApplication