July 31, 2024 will mark exactly 100 years since Compulsory Voting was enacted into law in Australia, thanks to an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.
Such was the success of the amendment that voter turnout jumped from 59 percent at the 1922 election to 91 percent at the 1925 election, when Stanley Bruce retained power.
Which also means it's 100 years of Democracy Sausages...
And people deciding they can't be ****ed voting in Federal Elections because the candidates are shit, and getting fined for it.
Still, it's not actually compulsory to cast a legal vote, and the Australian Electoral Commission has said as such:
"Under the Electoral Act, the actual duty of the elector is to attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box. It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off, and this has been upheld by a number of legal decisions."
Another unique fact is that compulsory voting wasn't enacted for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples until the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 1983 was enacted in 1984 - The 1962 amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act gave First Nations people the vote (5 years before the successful referendum), but it wasn't until 40 years ago that all Australians faced compulsory voting.
No comments:
Post a Comment