The final stretch of the federal election campaign has been marred by a string of ugly incidents forcing Australian Electoral Commissioner (AEC) Jeff Pope to speak publicly on the matter.
“Very vast majority of polling centres and party workers and candidates absolutely doing the right thing,” he told ABC Radio.
He said these events are concentrated in particular seats and voting centres, where organisers have had “to call police.”
Pope revealed inner city Melbourne and Sydney’s easternmost electorate of Wentworth were hotspots.
Recently footage emerged showing a volunteer for Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots party being assaulted in the south-eastern suburb of Pakenham.
Footage posted by online commentator Rukshan Fernando and later shared by Senator Ralph Babet showed a man wearing a bicycle helmet approaching the volunteer and appearing to knee and punch him while he was handing out how-to-vote cards.
This followed an earlier incident in the Hunter region, NSW, where campaign signs for One Nation were cut and torn apart. Senator Pauline Hanson shared footage of the incident online.
In parallel, the Greens have also reported a wave of attacks on their election material.“Incredibly disappointed by some of that behaviour, and we‘ll continue to call the police and we’ll continue to pull whatever levers we possibly can to try and make this the best voting experience for the voter,” Pope said.
Election Integrity Under Close Watch
Pope also addressed concerns around misinformation and artificial intelligence ahead of the poll. While there were no alarming developments, he acknowledged some activity.
“There’s certainly been some chatter around bots being used to spread misinformation—bots have been around longer than artificial intelligence,” he added.
Pope also spoke about foreign delegations visiting Australia to observe its election practices and learn.
“We actually have a number of people from Pacific islands here … we’ve got about 20 countries represented from the Pacific region,” he said.
“They are coming here because Australia’s elections are one of the best in the world, and we’re very, very proud to show them how our elections [are] delivered.”
Over 7 Million Have Cast Their Ballot
Early voting numbers have hit record highs, with 7.4 million Australians having already cast their votes.
Of these, 5.6 million have voted at early polling centres, 1.5 million postal votes have been returned, and over 42,000 overseas ballots received.
“We’ve serviced about 830,000 people just yesterday,” Pope said.
He warned citizens to expect queues in the final two days.
“The headline is, you know, there’s nearly 10 million people to still vote today and tomorrow.”
Compared to the 2022 election, early voting is up by 22 percent as well. The sharpest increase has been recorded in Western Australia, which Pope linked to long queues experienced during the March state election.
“It’s up in pretty much every capital city, particularly, but not so in the Northern Territory, which is interesting,” he noted.
When asked why people are choosing to vote early, Pope said it was the eligibility process that was taking up time, as well as promotion for early voting.
The AEC has made some adjustments to meet the growing demand but staffing, remains tight.
“We have had a modest increase to our early voting centres for this election. I think we’re up around about 580, which is only about 40 more than what it was in 2022,” Pope said.
