Mobile voters ticks off e-rolls trial

AN electronic voter lists will be trialled in the Maranoa electorate during voting on Saturday, September 7.
Electoral officers normally use hard-copy electoral rolls to mark off names and addresses at polling booths.
However, Maranoa returning officer Vicki Kapernick says a mobile polling station will be using computer records as it tours hospitals across the Southern Downs.
“The electronic certified lists loads information through the internet to show that the roll, so to speak, is marked off electronically,” she said.
“After the election they’ll be doing an evaluation, this is an Australia-wide trial, so they’ll be doing an evaluation of all the electronic certified lists that were used, how they worked.”
Meanwhile, the Australian Electoral Commission says there has been a rush of postal vote applications from the fly-in, fly-out workforce in the Surat Basin.
Ms Kapernick says there will be 19 voting stations across the electorate where absentee votes can be lodged.
However, she says many working in the gas industry are voting early because of the nature of their jobs.
“If they’ve got a 21-day shift, which a lot of them out here do, they can be leaving home before the early voting centres open and not getting away from their camps until after election day, so yes it is a challenge,” she said.