According to the major parties, one of the main reasons for using how-to-vote-cards is to ensure and enforce agreements entered into when allocating preferences with other parties. An extra to that statement is the fact that voters have been trained (brainwashed) by political parties to follow the preferences laid out on the cards.

If the majority of voters do copy the how-to-vote cards when they enter the ballot box, then the use of the cards is undemocratic. Undemocratic because usually it's only the major parties who have enough people to hand out flyers to every voter at every polling booth on election days, therefore minor parties and independents are badly disadvantaged.

Tasmania has addressed this problem by banning electioneering and how-to-vote-cards on election days. It's time the rest of Australia did the same.

And where are the Greens? Many voters have voiced their irritation at the environmental waste when they see bins full of discarded how-to-vote-cards. How many trees have been destroyed in order to manufacture them? Political parties do need to advertise but we need to stop producing the millions of how-to-vote-cards which are given out by booth workers on election days.

If the State and Federal. Electoral Commissions are truly unbiased towards political parties then they should be looking at placing a single, properly registered and authorised how-to-vote card for Independent candidates and candidates of registered political parties in all ballot boxes and banning any kind of electioneering at polling booths. That way, voters would be able to cast their votes on election days without the risk of being manipulated and irritated by how-to-vote-cards.