Grey nomads who don’t know where they will be on election day are heavily represented in the record number of Australians who have cast their ballots early.
With 10 days still to go until the May 18 Federal poll, more than one million people have already voted, with at least another four million expected to do so before the big day.
The number of electors voting via pre-polling has been rising sharply in recent years. In 2007, about 8% did so, compared to just under a third in 2016.
While the three-week pre-polling period gives voters like grey nomads who are travelling on election day, more freedom to vote when they want, some political scientists fear early voting prevents individuals from accessing all available information.
“When we vote early, we run the risk of missing out on information that arises later in the campaign,” Dr Jill Sheppard, from the Australian National University, told the Sydney Morning Herald. “If we find out in the last week that our preferred party is criminally corrupt but we’ve already cast our vote for them, we can’t go back and change our minds.”
Meanwhile, with election day falling on the cusp of the dry season, the electoral commission is predicting less interstate visitors will vote early in the north.
In the Northern Territory, at Katherine’s pre-poll voting centre, early numbers are down with the influx of grey nomads yet to hit top gear.
“May is on the cusp of good weather and we are not seeing the amount of voters we would usually see at a later date in the year,” Australian Electorate Commission officer for the NT, Geoff Bloom, told the Katherine Times. “In 2016 the election was held in the middle of the NT dry season and that was the largest amount of interstate visitors we have ever seen.”
Anyone wishing to vote early can find details of how to do so, here.
We voted yesterday here in Sth Tassie – only ones at the venue at that time so that what was a bonus.
David
Meet a couple of Grey Nomads in NE Victoria who had three weeks employment manning the early polling booths. Good excuse to charge the batteries and fill the tanks.