What to do if your postal vote doesn’t arrive before election day

About 570,000 people applied for postal votes for Saturday’s election but some are still waiting to receive them. Here’s what you need to do if yours doesn’t arrive by Friday. And will you cop a fine if you don’t vote.

PEOPLE who applied for a postal vote for Saturday’s election must vote by the close of poll, even if they don’t receive their postal vote on time.

About 570,000 people applied for a postal vote for the 2020 Local Government Elections and an Electoral Commission of Queensland spokeswoman said all were provided to Australia Post for priority delivery.

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However some people have indicated on social media that they have still not received them.

The ECQ spokeswoman said voting was compulsory and “if a postal vote is not received in the mail tomorrow, Friday, electors can still vote on election day”.

She said telephone voting was also available to those who are: physically impaired, seriously unwell, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, not mobile, or in quarantine or self-isolating on the advice of their medical practitioner.

Registration for telephone voting is available up to noon on Saturday and, once registered, voting can occur until 6pm that day.

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More than 20,000 people have already registered for telephone voting.

People can also cast their vote at an early voting centre on Friday to 6pm. For locations of early voting centres click here.

In relation to postal votes, they must be completed before the close of poll at 6pm on Saturday.

“Postal votes must be received by the ECQ no later than 5pm on Tuesday, April 7 to be included in the count,” the spokeswoman said.

Voting hours on Saturday are from 8am to 6pm. For polling booth locations click here .

Meanwhile, voters are still likely to cop a fine should they choose to shun the ballot box this weekend.

Asked on ABC Radio Brisbane this morning about the fines, Queensland’s Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen said the ECQ was focusing on tomorrow’s elections.

It comes after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said earlier this week that she would speak to Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath about the issue.

“People will make their own mind up in terms of whether they vote or not tomorrow,” Mr Vidgen said. “We’ve had over 1.6 million participate in the process. “We hope people vote tomorrow.”

Mr Vidgen said punters voting today were in and out in under three minutes.

“But we’ll worry about, after the election’s done in terms of who’s voted and who hasn’t and there’s a process I need to follow to go through,” he said.

“But at the moment we’re focusing on tomorrow.”

Originally published as What to do if your postal vote doesn’t arrive before election day