1996 Election Report: Polling Arrangements

Polling Arrangements

Preparations for an election are an ongoing function of the AEC. At the conclusion of one election the AEC reviews the conduct of that event and begins planning and preparing for the next.

Once an election is called a large number of tasks need to be completed in the five weeks leading up to and including polling day. Many of these tasks are dependent on the successful completion of key stages of the election timetable, for example, close of rolls and nominations, and all are time-critical.

Training

The AEC is a service organisation, dedicated to helping eligible Australians fulfil their legal obligation to vote and enabling them to do so with a minimum of fuss and delay. Training of polling officials plays a significant role in this process.

At the announcement of an election DROs have responsibility for recruiting and training polling officials. This is to ensure that voting at polling places runs smoothly and the conduct of the scrutiny (the counting of votes) is carried out quickly and professionally in accordance with the legal requirements of the CEA.

The AEC has developed a comprehensive training package for polling officials which includes videos, workbooks and practical exercises. Some polling officials are also required to attend face to face presentations conducted by the DRO.

At the 1996 election:

• 31 000 polling officials attended face to face training
• 35 450 training videos were produced
• 185 210 workbooks were printed.

Polling places were staffed by the following:

• an Officer in Charge (OIC)
• a Second in Charge (2IC) at large polling places
• a declaration vote issuing officer
• ordinary vote issuing officers
• a queue controller.

In the lead-up to the election and on polling day some 60 000 casual staff were employed by the AEC around Australia.

Not all voters are able to attend a polling place on polling day. To enable every eligible voter to cast a vote the AEC provides a number of alternative arrangements.

Pre-poll and postal voting

Electors unable to get to a polling place on polling day are able to cast a vote before that day at a pre-poll voting centre or by post.

For this election pre-poll voting centres were set up:

• in all capital cities
• in major regional centres in each electoral division
• in remote areas of Australia (e.g. Broome, Jabiru, Goondiwindi, Antarctica)
• at airports around the country for Australians travelling interstate or overseas
• at Island resorts (e.g. the Whitsundays and Great Keppel Island)
• for defence personnel (e.g. at HMAS Stirling).

Electors who have difficulty getting to a polling place on polling day can register as a General Postal Voter (GPV). GPVs include people with a disability, silent electors, prisoners, those in remote areas, and people who have religious objections to attending a polling place on polling day. As soon as the DRO receives the ballot papers for an election, GPVs are sent postal ballot papers and certificate envelopes.

The navy patrol boat HMAS Wollongong berthed briefly at the Cocos Islands in the week leading up to the election to enable 20 sailors on board to cast a pre-poll votes

Overseas

Australians living or travelling overseas are able to cast a vote at Australian embassies, consulates and high commissions or they can vote by post.

At the 1996 federal election:

• there were 99 overseas posts at which Australians could vote
• some 3.3 tonnes of equipment was air-freighted between 13 and 15 February 1996 to supply these posts with election related materials
• training materials were provided to assist staff at overseas posts to conduct polling including a training video and supplementary Consular Instructions
• a total of 46 307 votes were cast overseas
• the most votes, 13 926, were cast in London
• the least votes, 6, were cast in Caracas (Venezuela) and Fukuoka City (Japan)
• a full list of votes cast overseas is found at Appendix B.

An increase in the number of votes was anticipated in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, two of the largest overseas posts. As a result, an AEC officer was sent to London, Manchester and Hong Kong to assist with polling.

List of overseas posts and votes cast

LOCATION	COUNTRY	VOTES	LOCATION	COUNTRY	VOTES
Almaty	Kazakstan	20	Madrid	Spain	114
Amman	Jordan	72	Malta	Malta	195
Ankara	Turkey	41	Manchester	UK	354
Apia	Western Samoa	121	Manila	Philippines	664
Athens	Greece	470	Mexico City	Mexico	52
Atlanta	USA	106	Milan	Italy	69
Auckland	New Zealand	1 036	Moscow	Russian Federation	91
Bali	Indonesia	179	Nagoya	Japan	0
Bandar Seri Begawan	Darussalam	119	Nairobi	Kenya	85
Bangkok	Thailand	724	Nauru	Nauru	50
Beijing	China	300	New Delhi	India	270
Beirut	Labanon	271	New York	USA	675
Belgrade	Yugoslavia	69	Nicosia	Cyprus	483
Berlin	Germany	86	Noumea	New Caledonia	73
Berne	Switzerland	99	Nuku'alofa	Tonga	69
Bombay	India	139	Osaka	Japan	146
Bonn	Germany	195	Ottawa	Canada	166
Brasilia	Brazil	17	Paris	France	404
Bridgetown	Barbados	11	Phnom Pehn	Cambodia	307
Brussels	Belgium	116	Pohnpei	Micronesia	25
Budapest	Hungary	115	Port Louis	Mauritius	69
Buenos Aires	Argentina	65	Port Moresby	Papua New Guinea	853
Butterworth	Malaysia	205	Port Vila	Vanuatu	103
Cairo	Egypt	136	Pretoria	South Africa	187
Caracas	Venezuela	6	Rangoon	Burma	70
Colombo	Sri Lanka	154	Riyadh	Saudi Arabia	205
Copenhagen	Denmark	97	Rome	Italy	304
Damascus	Syria	23	San Francisco	USA	319
Dahka	Bangladesh	62	Santiago	Chile	321
Dubai	United Arab Emirates	93	Sao Paulo	Brazil	0
Dublin	Ireland	255	Sendai	Japan	0
Frankfurt	Germany	84	Seoul	Korea	140
Fukuoka City	Japan	6	Shanghai	China	200
Geneva	Switzerland	133	Singapore	Singapore	2 036
Guangzhou	China	134	Stockholm	Sweden	117
Hanoi	Vietnam	254	Suva	Fiji	452
Harare	Zimbabwe	163	Taipei	Taiwan	336
Ho Chi Minh City	Vietnam	1 228	Tarawa	Kiribati	23
Hong Kong	Hong Kong	7 661	Tehran	Iran	18
Honiara	Solomon Islands	204	Tel Aviv	Israel	241
Honolulu	USA	131	The Hague	Netherlands	214
Houston	USA	139	Tokyo	Japan	862
Islamabad	Pakistan	89	Toronto	Canada	289
Istanbul	Turkey	46	Vancouver	Canada	429
Jakarta	Indonesia	931	Vienna	Austria	182
Kathmandu	Nepal	99	Vientiane	Laos	128
Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia	1 121	Warsaw	Poland	120
Lagos	Nigeria	7	Washington DC	USA	827
London	UK	13 926	Wellington	New Zealand	810
Los Angeles	USA	402	TOTAL		46 307

Mobile polling

Mobile polling teams bring the polling place to the elector. Mobile polling is carried out around Australia during the 12 days before polling day and on polling day.

Hospitals and nursing homes

• mobile polling teams visit electors who are patients in hospitals and nursing homes to take them a ballot box, ballot papers, and anything else necessary to enable them to vote.

Prisons

• prisoners serving a sentence of five years or less are entitled to enrol and vote
• prisoners can vote by post or, if visited at the prison, by a mobile polling team.

Remote mobile polling

• Mobile polling teams visit remote locations by air, sea or road in the 12 days leading up to and including polling day. Remote locations include Aboriginal communities and their outstations, pastoral properties, small towns, tourist resorts and mine sites with a minimum enrolment of 8 to 10 people.
• In accordance with AEC policy, local Aboriginal people are recruited to identify, interpret for and assist voters at each remote mobile polling location. The majority of these assistants are Aboriginal people trained under the AEC's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Electoral Information Service (ATSIEIS) program.

Apart from cars, mobile polling teams used a variety of transport to bring the polling place to the elector:

• 21 4WD vehicles
• 31 light aircraft
• 6 helicopters and
• a boat.

At the 1996 election teams visited locations in the following divisions: the Northern Territory; Kalgoorlie in Western Australia; Grey and Wakefield in South Australia; Mallee in Victoria; Leichhardt in Queensland and Parkes in New South Wales.

In the Northern Territory:

• polling was deferred until after polling day in 10 remote polling places due to extreme wet weather conditions
• voter turnout for remote mobile polling increased from 11 369 (at the 1993 election) to 12 348 at the 1996 federal election
• mobile polling teams visited 200 remote locations over 8 days using 4WD vehicles, light aircraft and helicopters.

In Western Australia:

• remote polling was only conducted in the division of Kalgoorlie which is 2 265 050 square kilometres
• because of the size of the division, Kalgoorlie is split into two sub-divisions, Dampier and Kalgoorlie
• remote polling was organised from AEC offices in Karratha and Kalgoorlie
• 13 teams visited 54 locations in the 12 days before polling day
• one mobile polling team travelled by light aircraft and covered 6 370 kilometres. The team travelled from Kalgoorlie, north to the Warburton Ranges, then west to the Northern Highway, returning south via Laverton. The team visited 17 communities over 10 days. A television news team from Japan, NHK, filmed this team at work.

In Queensland:

• mobile polling was conducted for the first time in the Torres Strait. A total of 14 Torres Strait Islands were visited by mobile teams using two helicopters and a boat.

In New South Wales:

• creeping flood waters from the Darling River created wet, rough and dangerous conditions for remote mobile polling teams. Despite the flood waters two teams managed to travel almost 3 000 kilometres over a seven day period to visit all 38 of the planned localities netting 74 ordinary votes and 15 declaration votes. Two other teams stationed at Coombah and Mount Hope took 29 ordinary votes and 3 declaration votes.

Antarctic voting

Being stationed at one of the most remote locations in the world did not prevent electors at Australia's three permanent research bases in the Antarctic, Mawson, Casey, and Davis, and on Macquarie Island, from voting.

At this election there were 228 eligible Australian voters living in the Antarctic.

Ballot papers were faxed to Antarctica from the AEC's Hobart office. At each base an Antarctic Returning Officer (ARO) was appointed from the staff and a polling place was set up on polling day. Voting facilities were also provided to two Antarctic supply ships, Aurora Australis and Polar Bird.

After the close of polls each ARO telephoned the votes through to the AEO for Tasmania. The ARO provided details of how each elector voted. The AEO for Tasmania recorded the voting details onto normal ballot papers and despatched them to the electors' home divisions. The originals filled out by Antarctic electors were packaged up and returned to Hobart on the first available supply ship.

At this election 217 votes were recorded in the Antarctic (compared with 104 in 1993).

Voting is not compulsory for Antarctic electors because the secrecy of the vote cannot be assured due to the process used to transmit the results.

Logistics

Number of ordinary polling places	7865
Number of mobile teams who visited special hospitals	475
Number of locations visited	2124
Number of mobile teams who visited remote outback locations	46
Number of locations visited	346
Number of mobile teams who visited prisons	22
Number of locations visited	42
Number of pre-poll voting centres	330
Number of overseas polling places	99

Polling equipment

Since 1987 the AEC has used cardboard polling equipment (ballot boxes, voting screens etc.) manufactured from recycled materials to furnish each polling place. This amounts to almost 200 000 separate pieces of equipment consuming approximately 450 tonnes of cardboard. All equipment is recycled after polling day.

The AEC engaged a new contractor for the production of the cardboard equipment for the 1996 federal election saving $0.5m.

Cardboard equipment

Ballot boxes	(large)	18 100
	(small)	18 600
Voting screens	(large)	120 000
	(tabletop)	16 000
Queue equipment		9 050
Litter bins		11 700
Tables		4 830