Queensland’s electoral commission is under scrutiny after widespread complaints of people being turned away from voting at last weekend’s council elections.
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath has promised an external review after a government MP labelled the issues “an absolute disgrace”.
Residents across Queensland complained about Saturday’s long queues at polling booths and ballot shortages that caused hundreds of people to be turned away without voting.
Bundaberg Labor MP Tom Smith said he had written to the Premier about the “outrageous” conduct by the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ).
“Right across the state we saw people being turned away from the booths because the ECQ was not able to provide enough ballot papers,” he said.
“The ECQ have absolutely failed in their role.”
The ABC asked the ECQ how many people were denied their right to vote, but they would not say how many people were affected.
The ECQ said the long queues were “regrettable” but officials made “every effort” to ensure all voters who attended a polling booth before 6pm on Saturday were able to vote.
“Where ballot papers were depleted in some locations on election day, these were quickly replenished by our team of returning officers,” a spokesperson said.
“This is not an out of the ordinary occurrence, and electors who remained in those polling places received their ballot papers and cast their votes on Saturday.”
‘A disaster’
Lawyer Rae Anderson was a scrutineer at the Landsborough polling booth on the Sunshine Coast and called the situation a “disaster”.
She said the mayoral ballot papers ran out by 5.30pm with a queue of people still lined up.
“They were just writing people’s names down and then sending them away without voting,” Ms Anderson said.
She said it was frustrating because, while the mayor ballots had run out, there were still enough divisional councillor ballots.
“I said, ‘Why aren’t you letting these people at least vote for their local representative?’
“At least 100 people were sent away … I found that astounding.
“Surely at 5pm on Friday after early voting [closed], they knew how many people had not voted,” she said.
Fines still on the table
The ECQ would not guarantee that people who were prevented from voting would avoid a fine.
“The Electoral Commissioner may decide to contact people who appear to have failed to vote after the election, and there will be an opportunity for those people to provide us with a valid reason for not voting,” the spokesperson said.
“The circumstances of any voter who had attended a polling booth will be taken into account.”
Mr Smith was more blunt.
“If the ECQ think they’re going to fine these people, they’re mad,” he said.
“If they want to slug a $150 fine on those people, that’s absolutely outrageous and we’ll fight them tooth and nail.”
Mr Smith said the weekend’s failures risked undermining democracy if voting became too hard.
“That’s how voter suppression starts,” he said.
“If we start getting people say, ‘I’d rather cop the fine’ … then the ECQ are actually a threat to democracy.”
Attorney-General Ms D’Ath said she expects the review to fix the issues before October’s state government election.
“It is essential that every Queenslander is able to exercise their democratic right to vote,” she said.
Law unclear
University of Queensland electoral law professor Graeme Orr said, while voting is compulsory, there is no legislation governing how long the process should take.
“What the law doesn’t say is what would be a reasonable time or an unreasonable time to have to wait, or to come back to get that ballot paper,” he said.
Professor Orr said the root of the problem was not having enough ballot papers printed that could be moved quickly between polling booths when one ran out.
“It’s not a perfect science … what really matters here is the investigation going forward,” he said.
Cairns councillor Cathy Zeiger said the polling booth failures were upsetting.
“I almost felt teary … It was disgusting,” she said.
“If [ECQ] was a business, it would be broke.”