Thousands of Swan Hill residents will receive infringements in the mail from Tuesday for failing to vote in last October’s local council elections.
More than 3000 eligible residents in the Swan Hill municipality failed to cast their postal vote by the deadline of October 21, according to the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC).
The VEC said infringement notices for the Swan Hill municipality would be sent from March 28.
“The infringement notice is not the final step and people still have a number of options, including paying the fine, applying for an internal review (if they believe a mistake was made in issuing the infringement or if they had exceptional circumstances) or having the matter heard in court,” a spokesperson said.
Failure to vote notices were sent out in January and February, asking them to explain why they appeared not to have voted.
The average voter turnout across the three contested wards in Swan Hill was 76.13 per cent, just shy of the 77.22 per cent turnout for the 2012 election when all four wards were contested.
To read more of this story, grab a copy of Friday’s Guardian (March 24).
