pre-poll

SA2026 – Tracking the Early Vote

Update: – Friday 20 March at the end of the early voting period.

In 2026 South Australia joins the rest of Australia in removing restrictions on in-person early voting. The rule that required the Electoral Commission to encourage polling day voting has been abolished, and early votes are now cast as “ordinary” votes, the voter marked off the roll and the ballot paper placed directly into a ballot box.

Previously early votes were placed in declaration envelopes that needed to be checked against the roll before opening. That could only be done in the week after election day, preventing the counting of early votes on election night.

Almost as importantly for knowing the result on election night in 2026, South Australia will join the rest of the nation in allowing early votes to be counted and reported on election night.

Given the huge surge in early voting at the 2026 election, there is likely to be a gap between the reporting of polling place results, and the reporting of the much larger EVC counts later in the evening.

The number of early voting centres (EVCs) have been increased from 22 in 2018 to 37 in 2022 and 59 in 2026. This year there are EVCs in all 47 districts plus a second EVC in each of Adelaide, Chaffey, Flinders, Giles, Hartley, MacKillop, Mawson, Narungga, Ngadjuri, Schubert, Stuart and Wright.

And the numbers reported so far show a huge increase in early voting in 2026.

  • By the end of early voting on Friday 20 19 March, there had been 466,364 early votes cast compared to a final tally of 212,466 in 2022. 35.4% of enrolled voters have already voted at EVCs with one day of early voting to come, compared to a final tally of 16.8% in 2022. There were 93,016 pre-polls issued today. (There is a discrepancy of about 11,000 votes in my calculations from the table of early votes in the Electoral Commission website compared to the Commission’s total.)
  • Applications for postal votes have closed. 174,121 have been received, 13.2% of enrolled voters. In 2022 there were a total of 171,687 applications representing 13.6% of enrolment which is a small decline in postal voting.

  • There are graphs and more information on early and postal voting in 2022 inside the post.
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Dunkley By-election – Tracking the Early Vote

In this post I will track the rate of pre-poll voting, postal vote application and postal vote return rates for the Dunkley by-election. Polling day is Saturday 2 March.

I’ll put headline figures here at the top of the post each day and graph daily voting rates inside the post.

Saturday 2 March (Final figures)

  • At the end of the pre-poll voting period, total of 29,928 pre-poll votes were taken representing 26.4% of enrolment. This compares to 30,395 votes or 27.2% of enrolment in 2022. The 2022 figure has been adjusted to exclude out-of-district pre-polls. There were 6,247 pre-polls taken on the final day compared to 5,159 on the same day in 2022.
  • A total of 21,983 postal vote applications were received representing 19.4% of enrolment. So far 15,434 postal votes have been returned representing 13.6% of enrolment or 70.2% of applications.
  • The number of pre-polls taken at the three Pre-Poll Voting Centres is Carrum Down 12,957, Frankston 12,468 and Mount Eliza 4,503.
  • In person pre-poll voting at in district centres has finished at 98.5% of the 2022 Federal election level. The final figure for the Aston by-election was 82.4% and for Fadden 78.5% so the pre-polls don’t point to a significantly lower turnout in Dunkley. I have excluded out-of-district pre-polls from the calculations as they only exist at general elections.
  • The overall turnout figure for the Aston by-election was 85.6%, down from 92.5% at the 2022 election, and for Fadden 72.5% down from 86.5%. The Dunkley turnout at the 2022 Federal election was 90.1%.

The total figures for Dunkley at the 2022 election were –

  • Adjusting for out-of-district pre-polls, there were 30,395 pre-poll votes taken in Dunkley at the 2022 election, representing 27.2% of enrolment or 30.2% of total votes.
  • There were 22,221 applications for postal votes representing 19.9% of enrolment. 16,625 postal votes had returned by polling day, a return rate of 74.8%. By the closing date for receipt of postal votes, 18,430 had been received, a return rate of 82.9%.
  • Returned postal votes represented 16.5% of enrolment. Postal votes admitted to the count represented 18.3% of the total vote in 2022.

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VIC22 – Results by Vote Type and Vote Type by Electorate

During the Victorian election campaign, I had a daily updated post tracking the record rates of pre-poll and postal voting.

With the results now complete, it’s time for a post looking at the final pre-poll and postal vote rates as a percentage of the vote rather than of enrolment.

It is also possible to look at two-party preferred results by vote type, though these may change slightly with the Narracan supplementary election and some additional preference counts to be completed in the new year.

I have also included a chart showing the percentage of each vote type by district.

In summary, the swing against the Andrews government was much larger on election day than with pre-poll votes, and there was a swing towards Labor with postal votes.

In 2018 the gap between polling day results and for early votes meant that the Andrews government’s 2018 victory looked much larger on election night than it turned out to be once all the votes were counted.

So large was the pre-poll and postal gap in 2018 that I built that trend into the ABC’s 2022 election computer model. That the gap was much narrower means that with complete twenty-twenty hindsight, it would have been possible to make a clear election call earlier in the evening.

More comments and tables inside the post.Read More »VIC22 – Results by Vote Type and Vote Type by Electorate

2020 Groom By-election – Rates of Pre-Poll and Postal Voting

Voting for the Groom by-election has been underway today with few surprises expected in the result.

Groom is an ultra-safe LNP seat, held with a margin of 20.5%. The by-election has been caused by the resignation of LNP member John McVeigh. Only four candidates have nominated, well down on the 14 that contested the Eden-Monaro by-election in July. That Labor nominated a candidate in such as safe LNP seat was greeted with general surprise, while the Greens have opted out of contesting a Federal by-election for the first time in a quarter-century.

The LNP’s Garth Hamilton is expected to win easily and I won’t be providing any coverage of the results tonight. The best places to follow the results are the Australian Electoral Commission’s website, and via William Bowe at his Pollbludger site.

As I have for other elections this year, I thought it worth devoting a post to pre-poll and postal voting rates. With Covid-19 still around, you would have expected a high rate of postal and pre-poll voting. In fact the numbers are only slightly higher in Groom than at last year’s Federal election.

It gives me an opportunity to raise an issue about postal vote applications that should be addressed before the next Federal election. In short, there are serious questions as to whether we should still be allowing postal vote applications as late as the Wednesday before polling day. With Australia Post scaling back postal delivery times, what is the point of allowing application for postal votes too late for the postal vote pack to be delivered before polling day?
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Tracking the Pre-Poll Vote for the ACT Election

In this post I’ll track the rate of pre-poll voting for the 2020 ACT Election compared to 2016. The ACT Electoral Commission is actively encouraging pre-poll voting as a Covid-19 measure.

I’ll graph the data inside the post.

Day 19 – The final day of pre-polling, Friday 16 October, saw a huge surge with 26,804 votes taken. This brings the total number of pre-poll votes to 192,186 from a roll of 302,630, representing 63.5% of enrolment. Around 90% of these pre-poll votes were taken electronically and will be released in the count on Saturday night.

Another 22,328 electors have applied for a postal vote, putting the pre-election day voting rate up above 70%.

Several notes to make. First, late and polling day enrolment are allowed in the ACT so the roll number will rise slightly. Secondly, not all postal votes will be returned. Third, it is estimated around 80,000 Canberrans will vote in the traditional way today, Saturday 17 October.Read More »Tracking the Pre-Poll Vote for the ACT Election