05:04Liberal MP for North Sydney, Trent Zimmerman, has advocated compulsory voter identification for federal elections in the Coalition party room on Tuesday. Zimmerman told Guardian Australia it would be a “reasonably simple step to ensure the integrity of the voting system”. “It seems bizarre that you require more ID to get into a pub in Sydney than to determine the prime minister of Australia. It’s about time we ensured the possibility of multiple voting is precluded by this simple step.”He said there were 8,000 cases of suspected multiple voting referred to the Australian federal police at the 2013 election. But because the lack of resources to investigate and burden of evidence is so high, it was more important to prevent rather than punish multiple voting, Zimmerman said.

Source: The Guardian March 20, 2017 20:51 UTC