CoMHWA Condemns AEC Not Sending Mobile Voting Teams into Hospitals
Consumers of Mental Health WA strongly condemns the decision of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to not make voting accessible to people admitted as inpatients in hospitals across WA. Without providing mobile voting teams, or alternatively initiating a proactive in-reach program to facilitate postal voting, the AEC is depriving many people of a fundamental democratic right of Australian citizens to vote in elections and referendums. We are further dismayed that this decision has been made permanent following on from Covid-era policy, and we urge the AEC to immediately reverse this policy.
Darren Munday, CEO of Consumers of Mental Health WA, stated “People with a lived experience of mental health issues have long been the subject of stigma, discrimination and human rights violations and the decision to halt mobile voting teams further perpetuates these for inpatients across the state”.