Early voting seems to have become a way of life for Queenslanders with the numbers for the 2020 State General Election breaking all previous records.
Electoral Commissioner, Pat Vidgen said the numbers were well above the number received at the 2017 State General Election.
“Electors took advantage of the ECQ’s extended voting days and times in more than 200 early voting centres across Queensland,” Mr Vidgen said.
“Election planning in 2020 has had to factor-in measures to safeguard the health and wellbeing of electors and our staff during the COVID-19 global pandemic.”
He said electors responded by early voting and postal voting in unprecedented numbers ensuring polling booth numbers on Election Day itself were maintained at easily manageable levels.
Mr Vidgen said that while COVID-19 was clearly a factor in early voting numbers in 2020, there was a growing trend towards this way of voting before the current poll.
“The Australian Electoral Commission reports Federal early voting numbers have increased from around 22 per cent in 2016 to 32 per cent in 2019,” he said.
“In the 2015 Queensland General Election 19 per cent of 2.7 million electors voted early, and in 2017 it was 26 per cent.”
He said that earlier this year the Local Government election saw early voting numbers jump to around 50 per cent of electors who voted.
“There were 570,000 postal vote applications for the March Local Government elections and around 900,000 for the current State General Election,” Mr Vidgen said.
