Election 2022: Have Covid? Key voting information you need to know
Voters with Covid still face lengthy delays despite changes to rules around telephone voting were quickly introduced after threats of a court challenge. Here’s what you need to know
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Voters with Covid still face lengthy delays despite changes to rules around telephone voting were quickly introduced after threats of a court challenge.
Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers has urged voters to be patient as the changes came into force.
The AEC website advised: You must register to phone vote by 4pm AEST Saturday 21 May. Telephone voting lines will remain open until 6pm local time Saturday 21 May. There is more information on the website here.
Mr Rogers said the process would be lengthy for those that phoned in and called on voters to be prepared with their vote before getting on the phone.
“I urge people to be prepared when they phone in, to have looked at the ballot papers online on our website. You will see when you register the ballot papers are there to look at,” he said.
“Be prepared rather than be going in clueless and asking our staff to read out entire ballot papers.”
He said he didn‘t know how many people would be phoning in.
“Voter behaviour is very, very hard to predict. We just don‘t know,” he said.
“Making this change this late in the process is not without risk, but we think it‘s worthwhile.”
The AEC has recruited more than 100,000 people as part of its “temporary election workforce”, while more than 6,000 public servants have been repurposed to assist with manning the phones.
The Australian Electoral Commission announced the daily record for pre-poll voting has been broken as keen Australians cast their vote early.
A total of 743,000 Australians around the country voted on Thursday – a record that is expected to be broken on Friday.
Out of around 17,229,000 registered voters, 4.61 million Australians have submitted their vote, including 2.73 million postal votes and 26 thousand phone votes.
The turnaround on Covid voting came after Kooyong independent candidate Monique Ryan signalled she would take Federal Court action.
Tens of thousands of people who tested positive to Covid before Tuesday faced being denied the right to vote in what was labelled an assault on democracy.
The Australian Electoral Commission came under fierce criticism after confirming that anyone who tested positive to Covid before Tuesday night will not be able to vote unless they applied for a postal ballot before the Wednesday cut-off.
While the AEC has the technology to run phone voting, the option is only being extended to people who tested positive to the virus after 6pm on Tuesday.
Lawyers for Ms Ryan were preparing for the legal action against Special Minister of State Ben Morton who oversees the related regulations.
“Today, at prepoll, a neighbour came to me in tears. Her husband has Covid and has just realised that he won’t be able to vote on Saturday,” Dr Ryan said.
“I soon discovered that it wasn’t just him. I started hearing from dozens of people in the same boat.
“Looking at the case numbers, I realised that up to 200,000 people were affected by this situation; possibly as many as 1 per cent of Australian voters. It’s unacceptable. This could place some electoral results open to challenge.
Mr Morrison on Friday confirmed a last-minute change to Australia’s electoral laws.
Public Service Minister Ben Morton said the Coalition wanted every Australia who is enrolled and entitled to vote, to be able to exercise their democratic right.
“While the legislation determining these matters was passed with bipartisan support, I have asked the Commissioner of the AEC to provide further advice on how the government can support the AEC to address these issues,” he said.
The Prime Minister told Perth‘s 6PR radio the change had been made with Labor’s support.
Earlier, Mr Morrison said he wanted “everybody to vote” but it was not up to politicians to get “involved” in electoral laws.
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