When I used to vote in Canberra, 20-30 minutes queuing standing in full sun was common.
(Australia has compulsory voting, and usually uses primary schools as polling places... and sets it up so that people are queing on the sunny, seatless bitumen playground.)
If you're organised and prepared to vow that you can't make it to a polling place on the day due to travel or work, there ARE pre-polling places where you can vote ahead of time - still 20-30 minute queues, but at least you'll be indoors in airconditioning. (Pre-polling places are usually indoor shopping centres or office spaces.)
Disabled access to voting places is terrible here, most disabled people do postal votes.
The Australian Electoral Commision website lists polling places as "accessible" when what they mean is "send in an ablebodied friend to ask, and a AEC employee will come out to your car with a voting ballot and let you fill in the vote and take it away with them"
Every election, the Disability Access Wall of Shame facebook group has an argument between people saying
a) "all polling places should be accessible (and if they're primary schools, why aren't they accessible for kids and parents already anyway)"
vs people saying
b) "why make life harder for yourself than it needs to be, just do a postal vote".
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Date: 2017-06-11 03:54 pm (UTC)(Australia has compulsory voting, and usually uses primary schools as polling places... and sets it up so that people are queing on the sunny, seatless bitumen playground.)
If you're organised and prepared to vow that you can't make it to a polling place on the day due to travel or work, there ARE pre-polling places where you can vote ahead of time - still 20-30 minute queues, but at least you'll be indoors in airconditioning. (Pre-polling places are usually indoor shopping centres or office spaces.)
Disabled access to voting places is terrible here, most disabled people do postal votes.
The Australian Electoral Commision website lists polling places as "accessible" when what they mean is "send in an ablebodied friend to ask, and a AEC employee will come out to your car with a voting ballot and let you fill in the vote and take it away with them"
Every election, the Disability Access Wall of Shame facebook group has an argument between people saying
a) "all polling places should be accessible (and if they're primary schools, why aren't they accessible for kids and parents already anyway)"
vs people saying
b) "why make life harder for yourself than it needs to be, just do a postal vote".