Old enough to vote? You're on a roll

Rob Hoffman

July 28, 2010

Opinion

Comments 8

Potential voters line up to enrol after the federal election was called. A new bill proposes to make enrolling automatic. Photo: Craig Abraham

The Monday after Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced that the federal election would be held on August 21, thousands of Australians queued at Australian Electoral Commission offices to enrol to vote. More than 200,000 eligible Victorians are not enrolled, including about half of all 18-year-olds and a third of 19-year-olds.

The Victorian Legislative Council yesterday passed the Electoral Amendment (Electoral Participation) Bill 2010. It aims to avoid such unnecessary drama by introducing automatic electoral enrolment for all school students on their 18th birthdays, and allowing election-day enrolment for everyone else. While the Coalition opposed this bill, which was passed by the ALP and Greens, it is similar to one passed recently in New South Wales with the support of all parties.

As young people are the least likely to be enrolled and the most likely to vote for parties of the centre-left, the ALP and Greens stand to benefit electorally from the bill becoming law. The Coalition will be the loser.

However, generational voting patterns have not always been so and may not be so in the future. The Coalition's inability to connect with younger voters — especially on the environment — explains its unpopularity among this group. Regardless, any partisan effects do not alter the fact that this is fundamentally good policy.

It is unclear which, if any, provisions of this legislation will be introduced before Victoria's November 27 state election. However, given that its effect would be only to enrol those students who turn 18 between now and November 27, any immediate impact will be minor. It is only over the longer term that an increased rate of enrolment among young people will become an important factor.

The Coalition raised several objections to the legislation. It argued that the bill failed to clarify exactly what the Victorian Electoral Commission can and can't do with students' information. However, this is intended to allow the VEC some discretion and is part of a broader national trend to simplify the antiquated electoral acts and allow our electoral commissions more flexibility to better keep pace with social and technological developments.

It was contended that allowing election-day enrolments would open the roll to fraud. However, there is no evidence to support this tired allegation, which was also used to justify the Howard government's controversial 2006 tightening of the pre-election enrolment period.

The Coalition also complained that the process of democracy is undermined by election-day enrolment, as politicians are unable to direct-mail new voters before the election. Whether voters see this as a drawback is arguable.

If we are to retain compulsory enrolment – a feature of Australian democracy for almost a century and which no serious political player opposes – it is only sensible that we make enrolment as accessible and streamlined as possible. Many of the objections to automatic enrolment miss the point that if enrolment is to remain compulsory, we should use modern technology to achieve it.

No policy is perfect, however, and there are limitations to the legislation. By widening enrolment methods for only the Victorian electoral roll, the bill creates further differences between state and federal rolls. Roll harmonisation is an important aim, but it must be balanced against allowing innovation and experimentation at state level. It is legislation like this and its NSW counterpart that will ultimately drive reform interstate and at the federal level.

It can also be argued that this legislation does not go far enough. By catering only for 18-year-olds as they complete their VCE studies, the bill fails to catch those who may have left school early to take up a trade or who have migrated to Australia and are only now becoming citizens, nor does it streamline updating existing enrolments.However, these can easily be addressed in future legislation.

With more than half of Australia's population now covered by these provisions, this push for federal reform is gaining momentum.

Rob Hoffman is in the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology.

8 comments

How about abolishing compulsory voting so that only people with at least half a clue will bother voting? Now that would be a real choice! Until that happens we will only ever have lowest-common-denominator politics focused on swinging voters in marginal seats.

Commenter

Andrew

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 8:17AM
Any measure that will increase democratice participation (especially by the young) is welcomed, and those who oppose such measures expose their fundamental objections to basic democratic principles.
Such opposition has long been a hallmark of the Liberal and National Parties, as was clearly demonstrated in the changes they made to the Commonwealth Electoral Act - changes that had the sole purpose of disenfranchising groups they perceived were mostly unlikely to vote for them.
The fact that their opposition to the Victorian changes centres on the inability of their currently elected trough-feeders to post out junk mail (at taxpayer expense) to the newly electronically enrolled is a further expose of their shallow approach to democracy and electoral participation.
Thier hearts and minds simply aren't in it - and, as long history shows, never have been.

Commenter

Dennis Dodd

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 8:17AM
Dennis Dodd is confused by what democracy is - it's freedom of choice and equal participation. Mandatory voting - forced voting - is hardly democratic as it removes the right of choice for citizens. The right to choose whether you wish to participate in the political process. Everyone is equal as everyone is able to participate, but it's their choice if they wish to do so. That is democracy. I oppose automatic voting enrolment, because it's an further extension of removal of choice from an otherwise good democratic system.
I just wish a political party would have the strength to stand-up and work towards non-compulsory voting. A number of European countries have abolished compulsory voting in recent decades, and their political systems and country in general are better and stronger for it.

Commenter

Jason

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 11:06AM
Jason,
You do not have to vote and you cannot be forced to vote. The maximum legal coercion that can be applied is a fine if you have refused to comply with the direction to make the effort to vote.
Where voting is at the whim of the individual, it is an sop to the disengaged and disinterested parties. The committed and pressure groups will vote because they have an agenda. Their views will dominate over the broader social views and needs.
The decision to impose sanctions on those who refuse to participate in the process is hardly draconian, it is a timely reminder that sometimes as adults we are required to exercise our right to select our representatives. It's a shame we need such perverse incentives- but we do

Commenter

David

Location

Leongatha

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 1:16PM
I think there are far too many problems with the current election processes to worry about automatic enrolment of 18 year olds. Perhaps they could actually fix some of the things that are broken now and people would feel more enticed to actually voluntarily enrol.
You can start by getting rid of the farcical preferences system. Voting "above the line" or "below the line" is ridiculous, given the option of writing the number 1 and your vote going god knows where, or numbering 1 to up to 72, and figuring out what all those political parties actually stand for you can be pretty sure what the majority of people will choose, there's no democracy there, it's just a farce painted the same colour as democracy.
Then you can get rid of fraudulent political advertising. People have no way of telling the difference between a promise that will be kept and one that wont be kept, actually punish the politicians for not keeping their promises and you'll see them become far more truthful, how about not allowing politicians who break promises to stand for parliament again, and fine their party 50% of the funds they get from the AEC for each broken promise.
But none of that will ever happen because the system is far to corrupt. The people that get advantages from the current system are the ones who have the power to change it. Everyone else who suffers under it has no say. Welcome to the People's Democratic Australia.

Commenter

Cameron

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 1:21PM
Compulsory voting stops elections being decided on the diehard fanatics that will always vote. It encourages everyone to vote so that the entire community is represented - as opposed to the few that vote in compulsory systems.
Look at the rhetoric on both sides in the US and it's clear that elections need the calming effect of a disinterested crowd.

Commenter

Chatters

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 1:24PM
Australia does not have compulsory voting. All that you are obliged to do is turn up to a polling booth and cross of your name. If you don't want to vote then hand in a blank ballot paper, simple.

Commenter

JJ

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 29, 2010, 2:59PM
Compulsory voting can be annoying when all that is on offer is dross, but it's a better option than leaving it to the rusted-ons and the fanatics.

Commenter

HiLo

Date and time

July 30, 2010, 6:07AM