Australian voters cast ballots on Saturday to decide the next prime minister, as well as senators and members of parliament in voters’ respective electorates, after a six-week election campaign centered on the country’s economic recovery and a controversial security pact between China and the Solomon Islands.
Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said Friday that 7,000 polling stations have opened as planned, despite a 15 percent turnover of its 105,000 workforces across Australia in the past week.
“While this is extraordinary, it is a pandemic election,” Rogers said in a statement, thanking those who stepped up to fill positions at polling places identified as not opening due to staff shortages….