Significant advocacy has been undertaken by our office over the past 2 years requesting that political parties and Members of Parliament mailing out postal ballot requests to residents, do so identifying on the Reply-Paid envelope that these are being returned directly to a party or MP mailbox address, prior to being forwarded on to the Electoral Commission. This is currently not occurring.
The Minister has advised the following regarding the Electoral Commission in italics.
The Electoral Commission is:
- Considering a redesign of the approved postal vote application form to more prominently display application options for voters;
- Preparing for additional communications to voters to increase awareness of application methods; and
- Planning to engage with and closely monitor registered political party activities to ensure they are meeting their legislative requirements with regard to postal vote applications.
Finally, the ECQ is monitoring postal voting processes and trends across Australia, including in other jurisdictions like Victoria in 2022 and New South Wales in 2023, and will evaluate any issues in the lead up to local and state government elections in 2024.
We shall be monitoring this as from previous correspondence received, the current status quo is legal under legislative requirements, however is inappropriate and misleading to Queenslanders.
For anyone wishing to make direct contact on this issue, the Attorney-General can be emailed via attorney@ministerial.qld.gov.au