Electoral commission takes polling to South Australia's remote outback; new access for special needs of voters
The APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) Lands in South Australia's far north are among the remote outback locations reached by the state electoral commission mobile polling team.
Image courtesy Caddie Brain, ABC Rural; and APY Lands Facebook.
The 2018 state election, with 1,201,775 South Australians enrolled to vote, gave the state’s electoral commission another chance to test and extend its record for innovative procedures. These included the new EasyVote card used by 85% of voters to reduce waiting times. The commission’s mobile polling team flew on a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft for eight days travelling around 10,000km to 29 remote locations in the outback.
With the electoral commissioner of South Australia having overall responsibility for the election involving 6000 officials, returning officers have charge of running the election in each district.
The 2018 election threw up the usual complication of around 400,000 people (or one third of all South Australian electors) moved district and another 81,000 finding themselves in a seven different electoral districts after the review of district boundaries by the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commission.
More than 300,000 declaration votes (including pre-poll and postal votes) had to be sorted and distributed to their districts before counts could begin.
With South Australia’s preferential voting system, the electoral commission standard does a full distribution of preferences for information purposes, whether or not the count is required. Voting papers are scanned in a computerised count system that calculates quotas, distributes preferences and determines results.
At the 2018 election, the commission tried a ambassador program aimed at particular cultural communities and a focus on bilingual staff at selected polling booths. It hadpublications in 21 languages on its website.
Also on the website was a new icon that activates OpenDyslexic, a special font approved by the Australian Dyslexia Association to help those affected by the condition to gain election information. The website also featured world map that could be scanned by travellers to find overseas pre-poll places.
VoteAssist – an option allowing vision-impaired electors to vote independently – was also tried.
Electoral visitor teams attended hundreds of nursing homes, hostels, convalescent homes and hospitals across South Australia to help residents cast a vote.
AFL legends Gavin Wanganeen and Michael O'Loughlin went commission officials to Pukatja (formerly Ernabella) Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands to provide help with voting.
The commission and the Commissioner for Children and Young People hosted events including giving 16-17 year olds the chance to experience voting – with a sausage sizzle – on election day.
While the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) runs federal elections, the South Australian electoral commissioner in 1980 was empowered to conduct elections beyond those for state parliament and local councils (from 1990). Fee-for-service elections and ballots, with an independent returning officer, were conducted for statutory authorities such as Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara executive board, Super SA, the Architectural Practice Board of South Australia, and South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board.
