What are the ways non-US countries are adjusting to voting while in a pandemic? I know how things are going in the US (badly in many states, as is to be expected), but haven’t heard a word about any other countries. What kind of adjustments, if any, are being made? Is any country trying to go to all Vote-by-Mail because of COVID?
A by-election for the Federal seat of Eden-Monaro was held on Saturday.
Eden-Monaro in southern NSW based around Canberra has been marginal it’s entire existence and traditionally a bellwether electorate as well.
As usual it was tight with the ALP claiming the seat, by a couple of percent.
One change in procedures was that typically Australian elections are not held during school holidays (they aren’t fixed term) and a large proportion of schools function as polling stations. This by-election was deliberately held in school holidays so that the venues could be cleaned at the end of counting.
Apart from application of and adherence to the existing COVID protocols there were no problems reported. The usual options of absentee, postal and some mobile booths were in place. Australia has COVID on a fairly tight leash and we do know how to run elections here so that might not be much help to those stateside.
Australian Electoral Commission guidelines.
https://youtu.be/z4PrjRCgjPs