People casting a postal vote this federal election are being urged to return their completed ballot papers to the Australian Electoral Commission as soon as possible.
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Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said postal voters should complete their ballot papers, sign the envelope and have it witnessed, and mail it before election day on Saturday.
"Both your House of Representatives and Senate ballot papers must be returned sealed inside the provided envelope to the AEC for your vote to count," Mr Rogers said.
“At the end of Thursday we had processed close to 1.4 million postal vote applications, but only received around 500,000 completed postal votes back from voters. Clearly many postal voters need to act now and not miss out.”
Postal votes may be lodged with the AEC until 6pm on Wednesday 29 June but Mr Rogers said don’t leave it to the very last minute and risk missing out.
“It’s likely that for some locations it could already be too late for the AEC to get ballot papers to you, despite our best efforts, and you may need to consider the option of an early vote in person rather than postal voting,” he said.
Early voting is available in business hours Monday to Friday Mount Isa (despite it not showing on the AEC website on the weekend), Cloncurry, Normanton, and other centres across the Kennedy electorate.
They are at: Suite 1 Isa House 119 Camooweal Street Mt Isa, Cloncurry Court House 46 Sheaffe St and Normanton QGAP Office Haig St.
The locations and opening hours of all early voting centres are available at www.aec.gov.au or by calling 13 23 26.
Volunteers at the Mount Isa pre-poll said traffic was brisk last week and many more were expected to poll this week.
“It’s much larger pre-polling than previous elections,” one told the North West Star,
If voting by post is your only option, you can complete a postal vote application form online at www.aec.gov.au/pva pick up a form at any Australia Post outlet or AEC office, or call 13 23 26.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
