People casting a postal vote this federal election are being urged to return their completed ballot papers to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) as soon as possible.
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Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers today said postal voters should complete their ballot papers, sign the envelope and have it witnessed, and mail it before election day, Saturday 2 July.
"Both your House of Representatives and Senate ballot papers must be returned sealed inside the provided envelope to the AEC for your vote to count," Mr Rogers said.
“At the end of Thursday we had processed close to 1.4 million postal vote applications, but only received around 500,000 completed postal votes back from voters. Clearly many postal voters need to act now and not miss out.”
While applications for postal votes may be lodged with the AEC until 6pm on Wednesday 29 June, Mr Rogers cautioned that time is running out.
“If you need a postal vote, don’t leave it to the very last minute and risk missing out. It’s likely that for some locations it could already be too late for the AEC to get ballot papers to you, despite our best efforts, and you may need to consider the option of an early vote in person rather than postal voting.”
The locations and opening hours of early voting centres are available at www.aec.gov.au or by calling 13 23 26.
“If voting by post is your only option, you can complete a postal vote application form online atwww.aec.gov.au/pva pick up a form at any Australia Post outlet or AEC office, or call 13 23 26 to have an application form sent to you,” Mr Rogers said.
