Over 30,000 Electors Voted Away from Home

Media release – Tasmanian Electoral Commission, 6 May 2021

Over 30,000 electors voted away from home

Over 30,000 Tasmanian electors voted outside their home division at this year’s state election. This represents a 30% increase on the 2018 State election.

The Electoral Commissioner said:

It appears the sunny weather and Tasmanians embracing their home state during the COVID pandemic has resulted in a larger number of Tasmanians voting away from home. The use of netbooks since 2010 has made this simple for electors. Prior to this, and for federal elections, anyone voting outside their division must cast an ‘absent’ vote using an envelope.

An interesting point – on polling day, 1,700 Clark electors voted across the Lyons division, with many voting on the east coast and the Tasman Peninsula.

Also, Lyons electors top the list for out of division voting, with 10,000 (over 12% of the Lyon’s election roll) voting outside Lyons. In particular 1,376 Lyons electors voted at Prospect and 416 voted at Summerhill. These polling places were inside Lyons prior to the recent electoral boundary redistribution, and electors appear to have crossed this new boundary to vote at their favourite polling place.

New counts underway

Now that ballot papers have been returned to their home division, returning officers in the south are expected to complete their out of division counts today, with Bass and Braddon counts likely to be completed tomorrow.