‘Absolute debacle’: Council election chaos for last-minute voters

Suburban voting booths were inundated by hundreds of last-minute voters trying to cast their council election votes in person before the polls closed, with reports of hours-long waits and understaffing on Friday.

While Victoria’s council elections are being conducted by post for the second time, the Victorian Electoral Commission maintained single voting booths in each municipality for voters who lost or did not receive their ballots in the mail.

A long queue for voting at Drill Hall in the City of Melbourne on Friday afternoon.Credit: Eddie Jim

All votes were required to be in the post or be cast in person by 6pm to be counted – and avoid a $99 fine. As of close of business on Thursday, only 61 per cent of votes had been returned across the state. In the City of Melbourne it was just under 50 per cent.

Council candidates and voters reported chaotic scenes on Friday afternoon, as a last-minute rush of voters – including those who were confused about the voting process or hadn’t realised the elections were on at all – flocked to the booths.

Coburg resident Pedros Karantzalis told The Age that he didn’t receive his ballot in the mail.

He was furious there was only one place to vote in person in the Merri-bek municipality: the Brunswick Town Hall.

Voters queue outside Brunswick Town Hall on Friday to cast last-minute ballots.Credit: Oscar Yildiz

“It’s terrible. I’m a ratepayer of Coburg-Pascoe Vale. We should be voting up there,” he said.

Pascoe Vale candidate and current councillor Oscar Yildiz said there were 200 people waiting in line mid-afternoon.

He feared many more would come – and be turned away at the deadline.

“These current people are probably going to go [and vote] in the next hour but anyone who turns up from here on, those people aren’t going to vote,” he said on Friday afternoon.

Futher north in Hume Council, councillor and candidate Jack Medcraft said it was “an absolute debacle” at the Sunbury voting centre, where people queued for an hour.

“People are complaining, they’re saying, ‘What’s going on?’” he said.

“We’ve got a huge area here in Hume and this is the only place you can vote. I’d not like to have driven from Kalkallo to here and then be waiting for an hour.

“If [the VEC] really think they are closing at 6pm, I can’t see that happening, because there will be a queue out of the front.”

Voters at Moonee Ponds voting centre on Mount Alexander Road on Friday afternoon.Credit: Pierce Tyson

Late Friday, a VEC spokeswoman said that anyone who was still in line at 6pm would not be turned away and would be given a ballot to vote.

Medcraft said those he had spoken to were a mixture of people who had changed address and not notified the VEC, those whose ballots had not turned up or those who had received their ballot pack and lost it or thrown it away.

“I don’t understand why people didn’t post their ballot pack [back] before today,” he said.

Moonee Valley Mayor and candidate Pierce Tyson said VEC staff at the Moonee Ponds voting centre on Mount Alexander Road were “pretty swamped”, with a line of about 70 people and reports of up to 90-minute waits.

Voters waiting outside the polling centre on Macedon Street in Sunbury on Friday.Credit: Jack Medcraft

Compounding confusion around the postal vote was the fact that people can’t vote out of electorate, he said.

“It’s not good,” he said. “I met one woman who went to vote in Hume, got to the front, they sent her to Merri-bek, then she lined up for 30 minutes at Merri-bek, and then they sent her to Moonee Valley.

“And people who are being told to drive to Sunbury or Frankston have just said, ‘I’m not going to do that’. I’ve had two dozen people who have said ‘I’ll cop the fine’ and walked away.”

City of Melbourne lord mayoral candidate Jamal Hakim said there were about 200 to 300 people in line outside Drill Hall in the city at one point in the afternoon.

Hakim called for a return to in-person voting. “A lot of multicultural voters are very confused about the postal ballot – they expected it to be an in-person vote on a Saturday,” he said.

“A lot of people in the public housing towers didn’t realise what the ballot was.

“To have these elections different to other levels of government is terrible.”

A VEC spokeswoman said election managers and their teams across the state were “working hard today to process last-minute over-the-counter requests for replacement ballot packs”.

“We ask that voters please treat election staff with respect,” she said.

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