The Liberal candidate for Yan Yean mailed thousands of letters last week referring to himself as the local Member of Parliament.
The 44,000 residents in the newly defined electorate received a brochure and a letter with a letterhead that read: “Sam Ozturk MP”.
Labor’s Danielle Green is the current state MP for Yan Yean.
Mr Ozturk said human error was to blame.
“I’m still looking into how it happened,” he said.
“You just presume the letterhead will be correct. “But, at the end of the day, we’re all human.”
Ms Green voiced her anger on Facebook, labelling the letterhead “misleading and deceptive”.
“I’m proud to be the Member for Yan Yean representing my community in the Victorian Parliament,” she said.
“It’s of great concern that my opponent in the upcoming election has acted to mislead people in the electorate.
I find it hard to believe this action is some kind of error and it has been referred to the Victorian Electoral Commission to investigate.”
Liberal Party spokesman Andrew Cox said the “completely inadvertent” error was made in the printing process.
“It’s a simple case of human error and was in no way intended to mislead readers,” he said.
“The content of the letter demonstrates Sam Ozturk’s commitment to standing up for Yan Yean families.”
Ms Green has lodged a complaint with the Victorian Electoral Commission.
When contacted by Star Weekly, VEC spokesman Paul Thornton-Smith said the organisation did not disclose the details of particular complaints.
“These are matters between the VEC and the people involved,” he said.
