More Than One Million Australians Failed To Vote In This Year’s Election

Remember the federal election we had just a month ago?  The one that went on for eight weeks?  It turns out it was so close that the final House of Representatives seat was only officially decided yesterday, four weeks after polls had closed. But that’s not the most shocking thing about Australia’s longest ever election campaign. Despite our system of compulsory voting, and the threat of being fined if you don’t rock up to a polling booth, figures published by the Australian Electoral Commission show that a record number of enrolled voters didn’t bother casting a vote.

Since Australia introduced compulsory voting back in 1925 turnout for federal elections has averaged 95 percent. Turnout figures measure what proportion of already enrolled voters actually cast their vote. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Australia has traditionally had the highest voter turnout when compared to other Western democracies. But this election something strange happened. Voter turnout dropped 2 percent, resulting in an overall turnout figure of just under 91 percent. In the Northern Territory voter turnout was less than 80 percent.

Lowest turnout for a Federal election since first compulsory voting election in 1925. Winter campaign? Long campaign? #ausvotes

— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) August 1, 2016

That might still seem pretty high, but it’s actually the lowest ever turnout for a federal election since the introduction of compulsory voting. Voter turnout peaked at 96.3 percent at the 1943 election. It hovered around 95 percent throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s but started to drop in 2010. Which is around the same time that Australian politics went totally rogue and both Labor and the Coalition started switching leaders around every few weeks (Ok it wasn’t that bad, but it felt like it).

The most recent election also saw a record number of votes cast for the minor parties and independents. More than 1 in 5 Australians voted for a party other than Labor or the Coalition. Combined with the record low turnout figures, it doesn’t really paint a pretty picture when it comes to Australian’s faith in politics.

If enrolled voters can’t come up with a valid excuse as to why they didn’t cast a vote on polling day they can be fined $20 by the Australian Electoral Commission. If you refuse to pay the fine you could end up with a conviction recorded against your name. If the government fines everyone all the 1.4 million people who failed to vote they could end up with a tidy windfall worth nearly $30 million.

No one is quite sure what led to the low voter turnout. It could have been the drawn out campaign, the fact that the election was unusually held during the winter school holidays, a sign of wider disenfranchisement with politics or a combination of all of these factors. But this election did show how bloody close the results can sometimes be.

With counting now finalised the Coalition government has a majority of exactly one in the House of Representatives. The seat of Herbert was decided by just 37 votes and turnout was down 3 per cent. So as flawed as our democracy is, if you want to a say in who is running the show you really need to… turnout.