Fit and healthy voters asked to give elderly, vulnerable wide berth on March 28

In a crackdown on Queenslanders’ usual free and easy approach to voting, the state’s chief health officer has issued a request to “fit and healthy” Gold Coast residents.

FIT and healthy Gold Coast voters are being urged to allow vulnerable people a rails run when polling booths open on Saturday – and to bring their own pen or pencil.

In a crackdown on Queenslanders’ usual free and easy approach to turning up to vote, Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has told the Electoral Commission she wants vulnerable people, including those aged over 60, to have priority in voting between 9am-11am in the council elections and the Currumbin by-election on Saturday.

Dr Young has appealed to healthy voters to vote outside those hours, up until the 6pm closure of polling booths.

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In the latest tightening of procedures to counter the threat of coronavirus, she said “vulnerable’’ voters should spend as little time as possible at the booths, and urged the electoral commission to allow them to form separate queues and even have concierge services.

As well as social distancing and an appeal to voters, candidates and supporters to avoid shaking hands, voters are being asked to turn up with their own pen or pencil, and not to lend it to others.

Telephone voting is available for eligible voters who cannot go to a polling booth, including people in aged care centres, anyone advised by a doctor to remain in isolation, and the thousands of Aussies who have flown back into the country and gone into self isolation at home.

Voters will have to do their homework well before they head for the booths on who they want as their area councillor, mayor and in the case of Currumbin, who they will vote for as their new state MP.

Dr Young said voters should minimise the time spent in static close contact within the polling booths, and should not gather or linger around the booth before and after voting.

Repeating earlier directions on hygiene procedures, Dr Young said: “For the local government election and state by-elections, political parties, their representatives, candidates and volunteers must display voting material statically at all polling booths and may not distribute or hand out voting material.’’