Union officials have been accused of dressing up as firemen and intimidating Liberal officials and voters outside polling places.
Submissions to a federal parliamentary committee, which will hold a public hearing in Canberra on Thursday, have described questionable conduct at the last Victorian state election but also at the NSW and federal elections.
In one submission, a Victorian woman described how a man clad in a bushfire brigade uniform approached her outside a polling booth for the last Victoria state election, saying: "Support your local firefighters, vote Labor."
Another described standover tactics by "union bullies from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade" who were telling voters in the queue not to vote Liberal.
Yet another said "ambos and the firies" in fake uniforms "to give the impression they were paramedics and firefighters" were distributing anti-Liberal material.
"Their physical size and the numbers present were very intimidating to both Liberal Party volunteers and voters," she said.
At one Victorian state polling booth an ambulance adorned with unspecified "political graffiti" parked across the entrance for half an hour.
An electoral official said other officials had told him of experiencing "violence, abuse and standover tactics particularly from union thugs from the Labor Party".
"I am sure that some tactics were illegal and the weight of the law should be brought against them," he said.
A woman in Cairns complained of a member of the Electrical Trades Union behaving in a bullying manner towards voters.
In NSW, a female party worker described being dwarfed by members of the NSW Fire Brigade Employees' Union handing out brightly coloured flyers telling voters to put the Liberal Party last.
One submission described a Labor candidate in a NSW country seat surrounded by 30 Nationals "laughing at him and taking illegal pictures".
The Australian Electoral Commission will appear before the joint standing committee on electoral matters hearing in Canberra on Thursday.
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