Legalise Cannabis Victoria says rival marijuana party ‘designed to confuse voters’

The Guardian reports

Questions raised over legitimacy of Legalise Marijuana Party which has applied to register ahead of November state election

An existing political party in Victoria that wants to legalise cannabis has asked the state electoral commission to reject the registration application of the rival Legalise Marijuana Party arguing it is “designed to confuse voters to siphon votes”.

Legalise Cannabis Victoria’s secretary, Craig Ellis, has written to the Victorian electoral commissioner, Warwick Gately, questioning the legitimacy of the Legalise Marijuana Party which last month applied to register as a political party ahead of November’s state poll.

Craig Ellis

He said the Legalise Marijuana Party’s application should be rejected because it “so nearly resembles the name of another registered political party that it is likely to be confused with or mistaken for that name”.

“We regard the attempt to register the Legalise Marijuana Party as an egregious case of passing off designed to confuse voters to siphon votes away from Legalise Cannabis,” Ellis’s letter, sent on Tuesday, states.

He said Legalise Cannabis was an “established political brand” with parties in every mainland state and at the federal level.

At the 2021 Western Australian state election, the party secured two upper house seats, while at May’s federal election it received about 500,000 first-preference votes and was briefly in competition with Pauline Hanson for the sixth Queensland Senate spot.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/14/legalise-cannabis-victoria-says-rival-marijuana-party-designed-to-confuse-voters

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