The Australian Electoral Commission has confirmed people who contracted COVID-19 before 6pm on Tuesday, but who didn’t register for a postal vote, might be unable to cast their ballot.
If you tested positive before 6pm on Tuesday you had to apply for a postal vote.If you haven’t registered for a postal vote in time you may not be able to vote.Lawyers for Kooyong independent Monique Ryan are preparing to file a Federal Court challenge against the Commonwealth over the rules disallowing some COVID-infected Australians from voting by telephone.
“It’s shambolic,” she said. “All they have to do is change the law ... we’ve said you have to do it.” “Since posting [on Twitter] about the disenfranchisement of voters who have recently tested positive, I’ve heard from many who are personally affected and very distressed,” Ryan tweeted.Under Victorian COVID-19 rules, people who test positive to the virus must isolate for seven days. More than 45,000 people have registered positive COVID-19 results since last Saturday.
Hooper, who lives in Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler and whose husband Adrian would have been able to vote as an Australian citizen for the first time, said that this election was even more important to her than others. Adrian also has COVID-19. A spokesperson for the electoral commission said the organisation was going to “extreme lengths to endeavour to get access to as many Australians as possible in a global pandemic” and that “by point of comparison, voters in Canada didn’t have a service if they tested positive”.
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