No Chance For A ‘Quick Vote’ In Tamborine!
The Queensland Government Council Elections held and coordinated by the Electoral Commission Queensland on Saturday 16 March 2024 proved a significant challenge for some voters. The official polling booths for Division 2 at Tamborine Memorial Hall and Division 3 at Canungra State School in the Scenic Rim were attended by a seemingly larger than estimated amount of voters on Election Day.
With a lot of voters choosing not to vote early at the pre poll booths, (stationed for these areas at Tamborine Mountain and Beaudesert), due to their apparent lack of convenience – voters then turned out in force on the day to attend their local official polling booths – only to be confronted with massive queues!
In the Scenic Rim, large queues formed at the main booths for each division, but it appeared the queues at Division 2 and Division 3 were significantly longer and unrelenting.
Several Division 2 voters, who usually attend the Division 3 booth in Canungra, suddenly found themselves in a 45 minute queue and then, unable to easily place an ‘absentee’ vote at Canungra, were sent to the booth at Tamborine only to find they had to join another 45 minute to 1 hour long queue. What should have been a ‘quick vote’, for some, turned into a 3 hour saga! For most it was at least a 45 minute wait with the queue never letting up and never lulling.
Ultimately, after driving past many times waiting for the lull that never happened in the never-ending queue, with time running out, many voters made a sudden rush at the end of the day.
(While also waiting for the queue to drop, I too, found myself at the mercy of the time-constrained queue to also place my vote.)
Placing a call for help to the electoral commission, a concession was then made for the queue outside the hall to be cutoff at 6pm which then took until about 6.50pm to process.
Was this due to the lack of staffing, or a lack of attendance by voters at pre poll leading to an underestimation of the amount of voters who would actually attend on Election Day itself, or due to a change in the processing in relation to the handling of absentee voting – or a combination of all three? Whatever the answer (of which I intend to find out), the all-important ‘privilege’ of voting turned into an unacceptable trial for many leading to an unfortunately lower than normal amount of votes cast overall on Election Day – with many opting for a fine instead of joining and waiting in the queue to make their vote.
(Another problem was also the lack of information provided and understanding about how people cannot vote outside their electorate. While this is possible in state and federal elections, it is not possible in council elections. A problem further made evident when people in the divided village of Tamborine who live in the Logan City portion arrived to vote at the Tamborine polling booth only to be turned away to Jimboomba or Yarrabilba – for some, after waiting almost 45 minutes in the queue.)
These extensive queues were something which should never have happened, people should not have to spend up to three hours to make a vote, (especially for those who could or should not be standing for extensive periods). It is also unnerving for many to have to ‘run the gauntlet’ past supporters handing out How To Vote cards. So although a system, which appears to have served Australia well, it does, in my opinion, with the increasing ability to process data electronically, seem to be progressively outdated. Going forward will question why these extensive queues happened, in particular for the residents of Tamborine and surrounding areas of Division 2 – with the possibility to locate a pre poll in Tamborine for convenience.
By Kerri Cryer
