'Bloody chaos': Warrnambool early voting centre

Official complaints have been lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the city council over the lack of parking at the Raglan Parade site.

It has left one business questioning whether it was worth opening while another was forced to erect signs telling voters not to park at his business.

Following previous criticism of its location, the pre-polling station had been a site of mayhem this week as pedestrians and drivers were forced to share a narrow path at its entry with surrounding shops.

Autobarn Warrnambool assistant manager Scott Buck said people using the voting centre had taken up his store's car spaces, forcing him to put up a sign to direct voters elsewhere.

"But nine out of 10 don't care about the sign," he said.

"It's hectic. We had a carpark full yesterday and only one person in the store."

Mr Buck said after he had no luck raising the issue to the building's owner, he filed a complaint to Warrnambool City Council and the AEC.

"I rang the council who's sending down people to enforce some order - people were parking on the median strip," he said.

"But they said there was nothing they could do about people parking in our spots."

He said he was told an electoral commission officer would later be in contact with him.

Mr Buck said he had never been consulted or notified of plans to have the centre near his store.

"It's ridiculous they've put it there," he said.

"They just need to move it. There would be 50 empty buildings in Warrnambool."

Crystal Water Pool n Spa owner Brandon Finn closed his store adjacent to the centre and said he had lodged a complaint to the AEC.

"(It's) bloody chaos," he said. "No customer is going to come through this. (There is) no point being open."

Election campaign volunteer Emma Holcombe said sharing the cramped driveway with cars and voters made her feel unsafe.

"It's a bit hectic," she said.

"When voters are coming in, and people are lining up, and we're handing out how-to-vote cards, it can get congested really quickly."

"It's definitely not the safest situation."

Ms Holcombe said she would also like to see the pre-polling centre's location changed.

"Somewhere that's got more convenient parking and more space for people would be better," she said.

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A Warrnambool voter who uses an electric wheelchair, and did not wish to be named, said the tight space and parking situation was "atrocious".

"There's no wheelchair parking," she said. "It's very poorly thought out."

She said there would have been little access to the voting centre for her without her carer's van.

"I would have to go into town to change buses, then wait for another bus to get back... it's just too hard," she said.

She said she would like to see the centre moved back to its previous location at Bayside City Plaza on Fairy Street.

"They've done it at Sam's Warehouse in the past," she said.

"There's heaps of parking there, it's accessible, and people can get the bus into town to go there to vote."

Her carer Sasha Karlinski said using the centre's parking spaces was "extremely difficult".

"It took multiple goes. I had to reverse back up and wait for someone to leave (the next car space) to actually be able to pull in," she said.

"That was quite stressful."

Ms Karlinski said she had close calls with pedestrians, other cars, and the voting centre building while attempting to park.

"There's very minimal room here, and very minimal parking spaces," she said.

An AEC spokeswoman said they had worked hard on accessibility and understood "tolerance for waiting (was) low".

"Ultimately whenever you have a system at the scale of a federal election where people effectively have choice of where and when to turn up, there will be queues and parking accessibility issues," she said.

"It's important to note that all venues are secured on short notice as we have to be ready to run a federal election and secure 8000 voting venues based on an unknown date."

"It's very likely that these locations change every election and we can't secure the same venues year on year."

She said it was not uncommon to have large numbers use pre-polling on opening days but there was "a range of availability for people if they do experience parking issues".

"We're providing approximately 550 pre-polling centres across Australia throughout a two-week early voting period," she said.

"There are thousands of polling places on election day and the ability for people to apply for a postal vote."

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