EARLY voting, in the 2022 Federal Election started on Monday, May 9 but you’d have to ask, why are there two early voting centres in Bass Coast and none in South Gippsland?

If you live in South Gippsland, and you need to vote early, you’ll have to go to Wonthaggi or Cowes, travel across to Warragul or Morwell, or vote in Pakenham on the way to Melbourne.

Is that good enough?

On election day, Saturday, May 21, you’ll be able to vote at all the usual polling places locally, but early voting options are limited.

In fact, there are only 500 early voting centres in operation across Australia during the two weeks before election day, May 21.

Locally you can post an early vote at the following locations:

• Wonthaggi Senior Citizens Centre, 46-50 Murray St, Wonthaggi. Opening hours: Monday, May 9 to Friday, May 13 8.30am–5.30pm. Saturday, May 14 9am–4pm. Monday, May 16 to Thursday, May 19 8.30am–5.30pm. Friday, May 20 8.30am–6pm.
• Cowes St Philips Anglican Church Hall, 102-110 Thompson Ave, Cowes. Opening hours: Monday, May 16 to Thursday, May 19 8.30am–5.30pm. Friday, May 20 8.30am–6pm.

Also at:

• St Paul's Old Year 9 Centre, 57 Sutton St, Warragul
• Moe Bowling Club, Cnr Saviges Rd and Waterloo Rd, Moe
• Morwell Senior Citizens Centre, 2-4 Maryvale Cres, Morwel
• Uniting Church Hall, 47 James St, Pakenham.

COVID safety measures

Dedicated AEC hygiene officers will be regularly sanitising surfaces and pencils at all AEC early voting centres. Social distancing will be in force with equipment spaced out, markers and other signage providing guidance and queue controlling staff offering support.

AEC staff will be wearing masks and other personal protective equipment as required.

Voters do not need to be vaccinated to attend a voting centre and campaign activities (including handing out how-to-vote cards) can occur, in line with local health directions and electoral laws.

Socially distanced queueing, venue capacity limits and required sanitising arrangements will undoubtedly slow down the voting process and Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers has asked for patience.

“Nobody likes to wait, and we work hard on minimising queues for Australian voters as much as possible,” Mr Rogers said.

“The fact is that when you run an in-person process to the scale of a federal election where people effectively choose when and where they attend, and then you add COVID safety on top, you simply cannot prevent all queues.”

He also reminded voters to be courteous to AEC polling officials who he said were everyday Australians drawn from the local community.

Candidates

The candidates in Monash (in ballot paper order) are as follows:

1. Mat MORGAN (Greens)
2. Russell BROADBENT (Liberal Party)
3. Deb LEONARD (Independent)
4. Allan HICKEN (Pauline Hanson's One Nation)
5. David Matthew WELSH (Australian Federation Party)
6. Jessica O'DONNELL (Australian Labor Party)
7. Meg EDWARDS (Liberal Democratic Party)
8. Christine Ann McSHANE (United Australia Party)