Department of Forum Affairs

[Peter]

Like so many of the finer details of the Forum Affairs brief, the minutae are not always followed. In fact, I believe the formal 7 days notice has never been followed, despite the fact that I strongly questioned its wisdom at the time.

Section 6 of CESRA no longer applies - see the Absentee Voting Act.

Being SoFA is an extremely difficult job - there are a lot of legal requirements that regulate the job, and in my hayday I was hard pressed to follow them all despite the fact that I wrote most of them.

[Peter]

Whilst certainly I do notice errors/oversights by the SoFAs, I do try not to raise them in a way that is too critical of the SoFA, and would only challenge an election in Court if the error really did cause a disadvantage to one candidate. Ultimately I always try to remedy the Law to make it easier for SoFAs to do their job - I think the 7 day notice requirement is one that could do with shortening certainly.