I thought it was about time to do another update of the early voting statistics.
As of the end of Wednesday, 3.87 million people had cast a pre-poll vote. This compares to 3.52 million as of the same point in 2019, and a cumulative total of just under 4.8 million as of the end of the 2019 pre-poll period.
As of the end of Tuesday, 2.6 million postal vote applications had been submitted, with 1.16 million votes returned. I don't have the Wednesday figures yet. About 1.6 million applications were made in 2019, which translated into 1.2 million votes.
So that is just over 5 million early votes cast so far, and I suspect we will have over 2 million more cast. So that would be 7.5 million early votes, compared to 6 million postal and pre-poll votes, 15 million total votes in 2019 and 17.2 million enrolled in 2022.
I was waiting until Saturday to vote. But decided to vote in the electorate of Petrie yesterday. By the look of it the number of people voting early has been constant despite the inclement weather mainly in the first week.
Good stats! As someone who has done a number of shifts on pre-poll this election I think its length should be reduced to a week. This is especially the case now that the AEC is keeping pre-poll booths open from 8am till 8pm. Further, making pre-poll attractive puts the lie to the AEC’s claim that they want to encourage people to vote on the election day.
I’d admit your day 7-14 stats for 2022 show a a healthier turnout than I’d been experiencing in Barton becauset the 6pm to 8pm shift at Rockdale last night had a much increased turnout.
Of course the AEC aren’t compelled to keep the pre-poll to calander weeks. They could do 8 days instead of 11, but really one week ought to be enough.
Love your work
Cheers
Thanks Ben. That’s an impressive number.
I heard that illness is affecting many of the staff in the pre polling booths. A suggestion was made that it might be a good idea to vote early in case your booth had to close on election day. I think I’ll still take my chances though.
Yesterday at the Redcliffe pre-poll all of the staff plus a portion of voters had masks on. I wonder how many of the pre-poll booths are doing that?
I often hear opposition members (of any party, at any election) say that high pre-polling rates means that people want to vote out the government. Is there any truth in this?
That’s one assumption you can make.
Another safe assumption is that most people just can’t be bothered standing in line for hours on Saturday, especially around strangers who may have Covid.
Pre-polling has gone up at every election over the last 15 years, whether or not the swing is favouring the opposition, so no I don’t think it shows any intention to vote them out.
Some thoughts re EV:
1. One week is plenty. Anyone can request a postal ballot. There is no need to stretch this out over two or three weeks. These long prepoll periods only benefit the two major parties, who have a deep reservoir of volunteers. Independents and minor parties are stuffed.
2. Limit the number of signs/corflutes and volunteers per EVC to a sensible maximum. When five or ten LibLab seagulls attack every inbound voter, it is literally suffocating. Same goes for signage. Two A-frames, plus an extra for each extra entrances, should be plenty.
3. If EV has to go into the night in a winter campaign, make sure the locality provides decent lights. The outside of EVCs in our electorate are pitch dark, people don’t see where they walk and step. Time and again elderly and disabled voters without a flashlight trip and fall. It’s seriously bad.
4. Covidmania at EVCs is pointless and causing unnecessary delays. We’re well into the endemic phase. If 80,000 can rub shoulders at the footy, and hundreds are cheek to jowl into pubs and nightclubs, what does AEC think they’re doing?
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