The Queensland Electoral Commission is trialling drive-through polling booths in the coming state election.
Drive-through booths in the Oodgeroo and Noosa electorates would be used to make voting easier for the mobility impaired, assistant electoral commissioner Dermot Tiernan said.
"What we thought we'd do is trial a couple of drive through places where we actually come to you and we're waiting to come to you," he said.
While designed for people who are mobility impaired, Mr Tiernan said the drive-through booths were designed for people with any type of mobility issue, including injury.
He said the drive-through booths at the Old Tewantin TAFE campus and the Clevland Baptist church would also have clear signage.
"You drive in, we come to you; we hand you a ballot paper [and] mark you off the roll, you put it in these portable ballot boxes and then they get added to the count," he said.
Drive-through polling booths have not been trialled in Queensland before, but Mr Tiernan said community reaction to the idea so far had been good.
"So far we’ve done very little promotion, but there's a lot of excitement, we’re getting a lot of calls at the call centre about it, and a lot of the elderly groups are quite interested in it."
The commission has also produced a Queensland voting guide in the 27 most commonly spoken languages in the state, Mr Tiernan said, including information on how optional preferential voting worked for recent migrants.
"It’s just a one page voting in Queensland, a little introduction on what should I do at the polling booth - we've translated that into 26 languages."
Mr Tiernan told ABC Radio Brisbane other initiatives to assist voters on November 25 included an e-assist kiosk at Coorparoo for people who were blind or had low vision.
“That's basically a pre-record, and people with low vision listen to all the candidates and they choose in their particular order."
Telephone voting would be enabled for those who could not get to a booth.
There were 3.17 million Queenslanders on the electoral roll, a number Mr Tiernan said was boosted by the same-sex marriage survey and a rush from when the election was called and before the roll closed on Friday.
“Just in a six-day period, 4700 people added themselves to the electoral roll, and over 16,500 updated their details, which is wonderful,” he said.
For those worried about polling day clashing with day three of the first Ashes test, Mr Tiernan said it was best to vote early, as queues at polling booths at the Gabba were expected to be long.
“If you are going to the cricket that day ... vote on the way,” he said.
“If you do decide to vote during the cricket and if there is a queue, you're going to miss cricket.
“You've got two weeks of pre-poll, so vote then ... plenty of opportunities to not get into trouble on Ashes day.”
This story first appeared on Brisbane Times.
