The Federal Court has ordered the federal police union to hold a fresh election after irregularities were found in its voting processes as the result of an internal restructure.
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The Australian Electoral Commission asked the court to investigate the Australian Federal Police Association's elections for the roles of zone co-ordinator and workplace delegates in each of the union's six zones last September.
The union had notified the commission after errors were found in the roll of voters and a number of delegates, meaning some members were not sent the correct ballot papers.
As a result, the elections were suspended in July last year.
AFPA chief executive Dennis Gellatly, who alerted the commission to the election irregularities and later gave evidence against the union's executive, said at the time the union would co-operate fully with a thorough investigation and called for a complete review of the organisation's operations.
The errors were understood to have originated in a move to a new database system, where some members were not placed in the correct zones.
The returning officer became aware of the errors just days after the close of nominations and had acted to suspend the election after correspondence with the AFPA.
Court documents said numerous voting members found errors in their ballot papers, relating to delegate numbers and zone allocations, after the union reduced its number of voting zones from 16 to six during a restructure.
One member expressed concern about possible anomalies in "the data around where [voters] are positioned within zones", questioning the legitimacy of the election and suggesting it should be abandoned.
The member said the absence of "entire business areas" was indicative of "wholesale problems" with the transfer process, according to documents.
He also criticised the new zone structure, calling for wider consultation and suggesting that its purpose was to "keep loyalists in the council and agitators out".
In handing down her decision, Justice Anna Katzmann said that, if allegations of a gerrymander – where electoral boundaries are redrawn to achieve a political advantage – were true, it would be "a serious matter".
"Gerrymandering in the determination of zone compositions is expressly prohibited ... and, in any event, would be an abuse of the national executive's powers."
Justice Katzmann found there was no doubt there were irregularities in the electoral process and only one of the six new voting zones was untainted by an irregularity that was likely to affect the results of the elections.
She said confusion over when the electoral roll had been closed and the subsequent allocation of members to zones were "at the root of the confusion that spawned the queries and complaints by AFPA members".
Justice Katzmann said the issuing of the election notice and the receipt and processing of the nominations in those five zones were "irretrievably affected by the irregularities", meaning they should be declared void and taken again.
"The entire nomination process relied on the members knowing the zones to which they were attached.
"Yet they were never told that the information coming to light after May 25 about the AFP's restructure would not affect their zone attachments for the purposes of these elections.
"There seems little doubt that this affected the result of the elections, not least by contributing to the 68 nominators and nominees being in the wrong zones."
She noted members of the executive were "dismissive" of the commission's submission and protested that the date the roll closed was irrelevant to the nomination process and there was no evidence the members were told the closure date.
She found that, while a failure to notify members of the closure of the roll was not technically an irregularity, it had "potentially disenfranchised members" and she thought proper notice should be given.
Justice Katzmann ordered the new elections take place after the electoral commission had updated the roll.
"The democratic functioning of the AFPA would not be well-served by conducting elections on the basis of a role that is almost a year old."
New AFPA president Angela Smith was appointed last November, amid ongoing in-fighting among the union's senior leadership.
