The Morrison government is preparing for a pandemic election with legislation to allow more time and reasons to cast a pre-poll or postal vote.
But the government has so far stopped short of endorsing a broader overhaul to allow the electoral commissioner to change the date of polling in response to an emergency, as recommended by the bipartisan electoral matters committee.
The bill being prepared for the final October and November sittings of parliament comes after a suite of electoral changes were passed in August to safeguard voting processes and raise the registration requirements for political parties.
Scott Morrison has consistently suggested he wants the government to run full term, which would mean the election will be held in 2022.
In Senate debate on 24 August, the shadow special minister of state, Don Farrell, lent Labor’s support to shortening pre-poll to 12 days but warned there “must be some flexibility for the [Australian Electoral Commission] while we’re grappling with this terrible pandemic”.
Farrell said with the high level of community transmission of Covid-19 there is “no way we can safely have an election now”. Farrell revealed he had “sought assurances” the government would bring legislation to deal with the joint standing committee on electoral matters report about holding elections during emergency situations.
That report, released in June, called to give the electoral commissioner power to extend the operating or polling hours of pre-poll and the “reasons electors can vote by post or pre-poll”.
These powers would be subject to safeguards, that they only be used when “all alternative avenues to conduct an electoral event without exercising emergency provisions have been … exhausted”.
Changes to elections should be limited “to the extent necessary” to conduct an election, including to the geographical area in which an emergency has been declared, it said.
Early voting is supposed to be reserved for those who can’t vote in person on election day, but greater advertisement of pre-poll and a pre-poll period of almost three weeks before the 2019 election resulted in a large increase in people voting early.
Farrell told the Senate that the government had advised that “legislation will allow the commissioner to extend both the period of pre-poll voting and the permissible reasons for voting early”.
The JSCEM report also suggested that the Electoral Act should “provide conditions to change the date of polling where an emergency situation prevents voting occurring on the date fixed for polling” – a recommendation the government has not yet promised to legislate.
Ben Morton, the assistant minister for electoral matters, told Guardian Australia the government is still considering the report and will respond “in due course”.
