A Brisbane City Councillor says Queensland voters should be “bitterly disappointed” with the outcome of a review of the 2024 local government elections.
The review, conducted for the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) by Nous Group, was released publicly yesterday, with the Commission promptly announcing it would implement all recommendations in full.
“For these elections, we saw around 45% of all votes cast on election day which was a significant departure from the 35% turnout we had anticipated – a figure based on trend data and modelling of voter behaviour in recent elections, both here and in other states,” said Electoral Commissioner, Pat Vidgen.
“We know this shift in voter behaviour placed additional pressure on our people and our resources on election day, particularly in more populous parts of Queensland – and subsequently impacted on the voting experience for some electors.”
The Review found that, “Many temporary electoral staff (TES) were exposed to significant workplace and occupational health and safety risks that could be considered inappropriate. In some instances, they report working 12-16-hour days without breaks and without access to food and hydration.”
It also found that some polling places experienced significant issues on election day due to an inadequate staffing model and ballot paper resupply issues.
It was critical of the Commission’s decision to not employ queue controllers at busy polling booths. The role had been introduced in 2020 and was initially planned for the 2024 elections.
“Without these positions in the election day staffing footprint, this removed a key communication point between ECQ and voters as resources were not available to communicate with voters as they arrived at polling places, nor support those moving through queues.”
“This contributed to queues that were long, poorly managed, and inefficient, which frustrated voters,” the Review stated.
Brisbane Councillor, Fiona Cunningham (pictured) says polling stations at Queensland elections are becoming increasingly unsafe for voters, candidates and volunteers.
In the wake of the March elections, she called on the State Government to implement a cap on volunteers at polling booths after claiming she had been verbally and physically attacked by Greens volunteers.
“Good democracy should be robust and competitive but never violent or abusive,” she said.
“During the March council election, I lost count of the number of times I was verbally abused and on one occasion things got physical.”
Her ward office window (pictured, above) also came under attack, left shattered by what police believe were ball bearings fired from a paint gun two days before the election.
“The 2024 review was an opportunity to investigate these issues and recommend reforms. Unfortunately, these issues were ignored altogether,” she said.
“This means the opportunity to address these issues before the State election in October is now likely lost.
“If abuse and violence at polling stations in Queensland continues to escalate, there’s a real risk voters and volunteers will stop turning up and good people won’t want to represent their local community. That would be an appalling outcome for democracy.”
Mr Vidgen contends that while the report provided insights and recommendations to improve the Commission’s performance, it also highlighted a range of success markers, including in relation to engagement, turnout and informality rates.
“What is particularly pleasing is that more Queenslanders knew about the elections and cast a formal vote at this event, than we saw in 2020,” he said.
“Overall, turnout was strong, and increased by 5.11% on 2020 which tells us that Queenslanders were aware that the elections were on and that they needed to vote. We also saw the vote formality rate improve for both mayoral and councillor ballot papers, driving an overall formality rate of 96%.”
He says the report will help improve understanding about the operational complexity of local government elections in Queensland.
“Voting in a local government election is quite different to voting in other elections such as a State general election.”
“The local government elections in March involved the delivery of 343 separate electoral contests to elect 578 mayors and councillors across Queensland’s 77 local government areas. Different voting systems for mayoral, undivided and divided councillor positions were required to be used, which meant the issuing and counting of two separate ballot papers for each elector.
“By contrast, the October State general election will see just 93 electoral contests conducted, with electors only required to fill out one ballot paper, using the one voting system. They can also vote anywhere in Queensland, including outside of their electorate.
“The measures outlined in the report’s recommendations will be in place for the upcoming Queensland State general election on October 26 and we’re looking forward to welcoming Queenslanders back to our polling places then.”
The Review made eight recommendations, including that the Commission review cost recovery arrangements; ensure costs that are communicated to councils; continue to invest in ECQ’s risk culture and capability; review and update core assumptions within the voter forecast model to take on lessons about voter behaviour; further invest in data and analytics capability to enable data-driven and real-time decisionmaking; revise the assumptions that underpin the polling place resourcing model; and seek opportunities to influence voters toward early voting as a means of ‘de-risking’ election day.
The Review of Election Day Issues at the 2024 Local Government Elections Report and the ECQ’s response can be viewed here.
