on 7 March 1996. Subsequent events The number of exhausted votes in the 1996 election increased spectacularly from 7,325 in 1993 to 48,979. Amnesty International described Langer as Australia's first prisoner of conscience for over 20 years, alleging that his imprisonment was a breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. During the campaign John Howard described s329A as stupid. In 1998 section 329A was repealed and the Parliament attempted to make the Langer voting method invalid by amendments to the Electoral Act. A Langer vote is now classed as an informal or invalid vote.The treatment of ‘Langer-style’ votes changed in 1998. Langer-style ballots are typically numbered so that, at a point chosen by the elector, the preferences stop or begin to repeat (for example, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3. . .). Before 1998, such ballots were counted up to the point that the numbering stopped or became non-consecutive, and were then classified as exhausted. Until 1993, the number of Langer-style votes was small, but in 1996 there was a considerable increase. It is possible this was due to the well-publicised court action against Albert Langer. Since legislative change in 1998, Langer-style votes have been counted as informal, and their number has declined considerably. It was not until 2016 that the Parliament permitted optional preferential voting for the Senate. Full preferential voting is still required for the House of Representatives. See also Optional Preferential Voting References Political terminology in Australia