At 91, there are many things that you can no longer do, but one of the things you still can do is have your voice heard in an election – but not for at least one Byron Shire resident.
Local woman, Carmel, didn’t feel she would be able to either stand in a long queue or let herself be exposed to rising COIVD numbers on Election Day, so she decided to do a postal vote.
Carmel’s daughter applied on her behalf online with the AEC on April 27, and Carmel got confirmation immediately via email that the application had arrived.
Another email, a day or so later, advised her that the application had been processed and the paperwork had been dispatched from their office on May 4.
Having only sporadic mail deliveries, Carmel didn’t worry when, by the week after the promised day arrived, she had no papers – she believed she had applied with enough time to spare.
When her papers had not arrived by Monday May 16, she rang the AEC and was told that the papers were on the way. When there was still no delivery by the 18th, she rang again, and was again told the papers were on the way.
Empty promises
This time she told the person on the phone that if the papers didn’t arrive in time she was going to call off the election, to which the AEC representative responded, ‘oh no, you can’t do that!’ clearly not seeing the joke.
By Friday Carmel’s chance to vote passed with nothing in the mail.
‘I feel disappointment at not having a chance to vote.’
Carmel, who as well as being a nonagenarian is a grandmother and great grandmother. She doesn’t know where the system got it wrong – whether it was at the AEC’s end or because of the delivery process.
She feels that the letters should be registered to make sure they get to where they are supposed to be going.
‘If they decide to fine me for not voting, I’ll tell them not to hold their breath – I’m not paying anything! I did everything the way I should have – they should be paying me for putting up with such incompetence.’
♦ Carmel is Eve Jeffery’s mother.
Age shall not weary them but at 91 years of age Carmel is a lover of Byron, and in her calming years with her strenght and spirit she can do many things besides holding a wire door open for politicians who want to know what she thinks. Carmel votes and has a voice in the management of the nation at every election.
Older people tend to vote for the Nats. Odd their postal votes don’t arrive.
Totally disagree !
Just because she is a nonagenarian, doesn’t mean Carmel has lost her facilities , at least not to the extent of voting National Party.
I , too, applied for a postal vote form and it is still yet to arrive. So, Carmel, we will be well prepared for the next round of idiocy, when our papers finally do arrive.
Cheers, G”)
You seem to not have access to the correct facilities Ken. Primarily educational. Secondarily cult deprogramming.
You really haven’t got a clue Christian. Maybe wider reading is needed to be able to make informed comments
What an insult to older people! You obviously don’t know any…
This is definitely not on! I’m now wondering how many others
have the same story.
That is a very good question Stef. I would add a wondering as to whether there is a pattern to it.
Looks like a LNP voter so no matter then.
Yep
Can’t believe you’d make that assumption. How disrespectful.
I’m not only talking about age but best leave it at that.
Who said older people tend to vote for the Nats? This one doesn’t.
Nor this one.. what an absurd assumption!
Back in your day, did they teach how averages work? I know a tall Asian guy, there for Asian people are tall.
Back in the day, an average, using a data set of 1, would be chucked out.
How many others missed out? This is pretty dodgy, and really not ok. It could swing seats if they are close.
Whilst on votes, much was made of phone voting for people with Covid before the election. Have any of those been counted? How many people voted this way? How and where do they show up in the count? I’ve not heard anythig about them as part of vote counting.
Well, I’m aged & it didn’t happen to me. I’m no tall Asion either and that
takes care of that. Assumptions again Christian.
Let me help you Stef. Replace Tall with Labor voter, and Asian with old people.
The Tall Asian Guy analogy was used in statistics and philosophy courses for decades to teach how group averages work.
These days they use ‘NAXALT’ which stand for ‘Not all (insert group) are like that’. But the group as a whole is like that. Old people in Richmond vote Nationals, this is a truth for the group. Exclude old people and the Nats vote drops, QED.