Thousands of South Australians could be denied the right to vote in the upcoming state election if forced into isolation by the coronavirus pandemic, crossbench party SA Best says.
The party said a briefing from the South Australian Electoral Commission ahead of the March 19 poll revealed about 30,000 people were currently in isolation as COVID-19 cases or close contacts.
While that number was expected to drop by polling day, up to 20,000 people could be prevented from leaving their homes to cast a ballot, upper house MP Frank Pangallo said.
"The election is going to be extremely close, every vote is going to count - particularly in the marginal seats - so we can't have a situation where thousands of people are disenfranchised," he said.
"It strikes at the heart of democracy."
Mr Pangallo urged the state government to recall parliament to deal with the issue, but Premier Steven Marshall said it had the chance last year but failed to pass legislation that would have solved the problems.
Mr Marshall said the government would engage with the electoral commission to find a solution.
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said an SA Health team was working closely with the commission on arrangements for polling day.
"Clearly people don't know ahead of time that they're going to have COVID, so it's hard to think ahead to make a postal vote," she said.
"But the expectation is that there will be a lot more postal votes this year."
Professor Spurrier said officials were also looking at ways of allowing close contacts to vote.
"Because it is important if there's large numbers of people who are close contacts or cases. It may have an impact on the election result," she said.
However, Prof Spurrier said it would be difficult to allow people with an active infection to come to a polling booth.
The concerns over polling day followed calls by the Nationals last month for the SA election to be conducted as a postal ballot to avoid voters, volunteers and electoral workers catching COVID-19 at polling booths.
The party's lead candidate in the Legislative Council Gary Johanson said the health of all South Australians needed to be the top priority.
Mr Pangallo said the issue on polling day could also impact aged care homes that might be in lockdown because of a virus outbreak.
In such circumstances, electoral commission staff would not be able to attend to assist residents with their voting cards.
He said the commission had also raised the issue of not being able to set up polling booths on the state's Indigenous APY lands because of access restrictions.
Legislation before parliament last year included a number of measures such as increasing access to phone voting.
