Election 2022: Aussies cast a vote for more convenient polling system
The nation has experienced a surge in early voting in recent years. In 2019, more than six million of the 15 million votes were cast before election day. This included a 58 per cent increase in pre-poll voting on the 2016 election. The trend towards this form of voting is accelerating, with a 37 per cent increase in pre-poll voting between the 2013 and 2016 elections.
Similar trends are evident in state and territory elections.
Early voting has become so popular it soon may become the dominant method of casting a ballot in federal elections. It accounted for 26 per cent of ballots in 2013 and 41 per cent in 2019. It may exceed 50 per cent of ballots this year if the rate of growth continues, bolstered by concerns about Covid.
The law permits lodgement of a pre-poll vote for reasons including that the person will be absent from their state or territory on election day or that they have a serious illness, are approaching childbirth or will be in hospital. A person can also pre-poll if they are in prison or it is contrary to their religious beliefs to attend a polling booth on election day.
A person is permitted by law to cast a pre-poll ballot only if they fall into one of these categories. There is no general entitlement to pre-poll. What, then, explains the enormous rise? It is certainly not that Australians are out of state on election day that much more often, or are having children or being imprisoned in remarkably higher numbers. Instead, it reflects a shift in community attitudes.
Australians increasingly want to vote when they choose, especially on a day when the queue might be shorter and they can more easily attend a polling place. Millions of Australians may not be entitled to cast a pre-poll ballot, but it has become common to self-declare they qualify for one of the specified reasons. This cultural shift must be respected. If we are to be compelled to attend the ballot box, we should be given the most convenient means of doing so. The system should be designed around voters to ensure the experience is as positive and efficient as possible.
The reliance on pre-poll voting to satisfy the desire for convenience comes with impacts on our electoral system. This includes that Australia has moved from a single election day with a low level of early voting to a system in which early voting may soon become the norm. The default has become a national poll conducted over multiple election days.
In the 2019 election, pre-poll voting allowed Australians to vote on any one of 17 days spread across three weeks. This spanned most of the campaign, meaning many people had to make their mind up before key policies were announced. They cast their vote without knowing if there would be a seismic shift late in the campaign, such as a major misstep by a leader or a hole being blown in election costings. In some seats, people cast an early ballot for a party candidate without knowing the candidate would be embroiled in scandal and disendorsed before election day.
Concerns such as these led parliament to reduce pre-poll voting this year from three to two weeks. This is a welcome improvement but does not do enough. We need an electoral system that makes voting convenient and enables people to cast a fully informed ballot. The fact so many millions of Australians are voting on incomplete information is distorting electoral results and adversely affecting our democracy.
As other countries have done, Australia should look at a broader variety of voting methods, including internet voting. We have become comfortable with conducting many of our most sensitive transactions online, and it is only a matter of time before we consider enabling Australians to vote via the internet on election day.
George Williams is a deputy vice-chancellor and professor of law at the University of NSW.
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Australians began to vote in earnest on Monday, casting a ballot at one of more than 500 Australian Electoral Commission pre-poll centres around the nation. Others will vote early by taking advantage of postal or mobile voting.