Tony Schneider, the party’s Indi federal electorate conference chair, says the Australian Electoral Commission needs to act on the group which backs federal MP Cathy McGowan.

“The concern I’ve got is that Voices for Indi should be held to the same account as any other political party, like us, like the Labor Party,” Mr Schneider said.

“The AEC should compel them to register as a political party because they’re behaving exactly like a political party behaves.”

Mr Schneider’s comments come in the context of Voices for Indi conducting a meeting this Saturday in Benalla to determine a potential successor to Ms McGowan as an independent candidate for this year’s federal poll.

“When they’re talking about preselections, who has preselections? Political parties,” he said.

“They’re acting as though they are a benign community organisation, it’s hypocritical.”

Mr Schneider said Voices for Indi was “allowed to get away with things that we can’t get away with” and then cited the requirement to declare donations to the AEC.

Voices for Indi representative Alana Johnson rejected the characterisation of the group as a political party.

“We’re not a political party, Voices for Indi are purely facilitating this process for the people who are involved in supporting orange independents in Indi,” Ms Johnson said.

“I think it’s a spurious and strange claim that we’re acting as a political party, because nothing we do qualifies as a political party.

“There’s a whole lot of criteria that people need to meet to be a political party and we haven’t gone down that path.

“There’s no money, there’s no membership fees and people wanting to be candidates.”

The AEC is unable to compel groups to out themselves as election players.

“The AEC can’t mandate if somebody registers as a political party, it’s completely up to them,” a spokesman said.

Such a move allows a party name to be printed on ballot papers.