COVID Cases Exceed Margin in Critical Seats

Active COVID-19 cases outrank the deciding margin in key must-win seats as much as seven-to-one in today’s federal election.

The situation adds an X-factor to an already tight federal election race.

Provocate’s VaxEnomic Forecaster shows an average of about 2,000 voters per electorate nationally are in isolation with COVID-19 today, with that number averaging as high as 4500 in crucial state Western Australia.

Managing Director Troy Bilsborough said average cases (state) represented at least 50% of the winning margin in nearly 20 of the seats deciding the election, and 100% or more in seven of them.

This includes seats like Macquarie (611%), Cowan (318%), Bass (178%), Chisolm (148%), Eden-Monaro (135%), Lilley (107%), Swan (100%) Wentworth (97%), Dobell (75%) and Corangamite (74%).

Bilsborough – a former senior adviser to the federal Health, Aged Care and Child Care Ministers (2013-2017) – said that for the first time ever, hundreds of thousands of votes would be phoned in from COVID isolation, and could see any party demand closer scrutiny on their legitimacy if results were too close to call.

“We estimate about 300,000 voters will be isolating with Covid today, and the majority of those will not have voted early,” he said.

“This will place significant physical pressure on a phone voting system that has never been tested at this scale and is suffering well-reported staff shortages.

“Then there’s the added unknown COVID creates around telephone operators manually filling out the ballot papers on behalf of hundreds of thousands of voters – and how safe voters feel about that – as well as much the political parties want to scrutinise the process.

“Previously this process has only been run for a couple of thousand Australians across the country. Now we are talking on average a couple of thousand voters per electorate. In an election race this tight, that’s enough to change a local and national result.

“All of these COVID factors presents a perfect microcosm for political opportunism and volatility for unnecessary further delay or dispute in forming a new federal government if results are tight.

“Hopefully the COVID phone voting system will stand up to expected intense scrutiny for the sake of business and political confidence and the economy. The last thing business and consumers can afford in Australia is a repeat of court challenges like Florida in a knife-edge 2000 US Election.”

Last week the same forecaster noted Australia had passed one million COVID cases – and 1000 deaths – since the federal election was called, meaning the campaign was operating in the midst of a ‘shadow outbreak’.