Milad El-Halabi was sentenced on Thursday almost four years after a local election in Melbourne’s north-west was shrouded in a vote-rigging saga.
A former Labor councillor in Melbourne’s northern suburbs has avoided jail after tampering with voter ballots that were counted towards his election.
El-Halabi was arrested in 2021 and continued to serve on council, but stood down shortly after he was charged in February 2022.Police also charged his wife Dianna and daughter Tania but have since dropped the cases against them. The VEC called police to investigate the election after an unusually large number of people voted twice after complaining they had not received their postal ballots.Bayles on Thursday imposed a conviction and an 18-month community corrections order with no community work conditions, with a $2000 bond. El-Halabi was also fined $20,000.
Voter packs were sent out to residents in October 2020, before an unusual number of people complained they had not received a ballot in the mail and were then found to have voted twice. Each of those residents had returned two ballots, one genuine and one false, the court heard.The prosecution was unable to establish how the ballots were removed from the letter boxes or who had removed them. It was also not clear who filled out the ballots and falsely signed declarations.
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