There was a story in the Sydney Morning Herald last week about how the NSW state government is considering a switch to postal voting for all voters at the 2021 local council elections.
These elections were originally scheduled for September 2020, but were postponed by twelve months in the hope of avoiding the pandemic.
I have been meaning to write a post about the impending determination and possible solutions to the likely merger of the NT’s two federal seats.
South Australia is currently undergoing a redistribution of its state electoral boundaries. The redistribution kicked off late last year, with the first round of submissions closing in April.
The Commission has released current population figures as of February 2020, and projected electors as of June 2022. Each electorate is required to fall within 10% of the average.
The next redistribution for NSW state electorates has just kicked off, with boundaries due to be redrawn for the 2023 state election.
The first stage of the process allows anyone to make submissions suggesting electoral boundaries, either making suggestions about a particular seat or the entire state. Suggestions are open from last Monday, 1 June, until 1 July.
The AEC has published its plan for how it will adapt the Eden-Monaro by-election to account for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The federal by-election for the seat of Eden-Monaro has been set for July 4, just one day after the Liberal Party announced their candidate.
The Liberal Party has preselected Fiona Kotvojs, the same candidate who ran in 2019. She will be facing off against Labor’s Kristy McBain, who was until recently the mayor of Bega Valley Shire.
Be sure to check out my guide to the Eden-Monaro by-election.
I’ve been working behind the scenes on my guide to the Queensland election, but I’ve also been taking the opportunity of this quiet election period to do some reading, including on some topics related to electoral analysis. I thought I would put together some blog posts summarising these books and journal articles.
The triggering of a federal by-election yesterday for the seat of Eden-Monaro will be a test for the major parties, but also will likely be the first test of how our voting will be affected after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia.
I have been planning to post for a few weeks about the plans for this website going forward following the conclusion of the Queensland council elections.
I’m not going to be actively posting on the website, or publishing any new episodes of the podcast, for the next little while, but a lot of stuff will be going on in the background.
Ben is joined by Alexis Pink to wrap up the results of the Brisbane City Council election and the Queensland state by-elections, including how these elections were influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.