Coronavirus: Polls go on but democracy sausage burns

The global pandemic is causing ­several states to re-evaluate their polling plans.

Brisbane voters get in early at City Hall ahead of local government elections.

Queensland’s election could be postponed for weeks if the coronavirus crisis continues into October, as the global pandemic causes ­several states to re-evaluate their polling days.

Local elections and two state by-elections in Queensland will go ahead on Saturday despite the outbreak and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk closing the closure of the state’s borders, with more than one million already early voting early and strict social-distancing measures to be implemented at polling booths.

The Northern Territory’s Aug­ust 22 poll is also in doubt as the Territory’s electoral commission says Scott Morrison’s ban on ­people entering remote communities will have a severe impact on running the elections.

Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath told The Weekend Australian that the state government would have the power to push back the election on October 31 into Nov­ember if the crisis continued.

“There’s some wriggle room there, for the Governor, (to move it) for a short period of time, 21 days,” she told The Australian.

“That’s a bit trick­ier because it’s a fixed election … Anything more than that would require us to change the Constitution. I’m just taking one election at a time.”

The Queensland Electoral Commission will still hold Saturday’s state by-elections — in Bundamba and Currumbin — and the local council elections on the advice of the state’s Chief Medical Officer, Jeanette Young, that it is still safe as people will move quickly through polling booths.

“There is no risk going to vote on Saturday,” … I’m more concerned with people going to Dan Murphy’s, the scenes I’ve seen there are appalling,” Dr Young said.

But the commonwealth’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Paul Kelly, this week called the election a potential “mixing event”.

Candidates and their volunteers have been banned from polling places and how-to-vote cards are no longer allowed to be handed to voters.

Labor’s candidate for Bundamba Lance McCallum said coronavirus had restricted his campaigning to hitting the phones, using social media and waving to voters from the roadside.

“And as long as it can be done in a safe way, in accordance with the advice of our chief medical officers, then I guess coronavirus might kill the democracy sausage sizzle but it can’t kill democracy itself,” he said.

Nearly half of Queensland’s 3.2m registered voters have already cast their vote at a pre-poll station, or registered for a postal or telephone vote.

Voters are being urged to bring their own pencils, no more than 100 people are allowed in a polling place at any one time, and social distancing is being enforced by a boosted electoral commission workforce.

The polling booths are being cleaned regularly, hand sanitiser will be available for voters, and the traditional polling day sausage sizzles have been cancelled.

In the Northern Territory, seven of 25 seats in parliament are situated in remote communities and Aboriginal Australians — who face a disproportionate risk from COVID-19 — make up a third of the whole NT population.

NT electoral commissioner Iain Loganathan told The Australian that voting would need to be declared essential to ensure remote Aboriginal voters’ voices are heard, as postal voting in their areas is very difficult.

“The NTEC is exploring contingencies if the pandemic continues to August … the initial focus has been the delivery of electoral services to remote communities,” he said.

“There is a current restriction on travelling to remote communities except for essential services and arrangements would have to be made to have voting deemed an essential service.

“A number of remote communities do not receive a regular postal services with mail delivered to a central point within a community (usually the council office) and residents having the responsibility to collect it.”

The ACT is still working towards a territory election on October 17, but Elections ACT commissioner Damian Cantwell said there was room to extend the election process if necessary.