The High Court challenge to 2006 Electoral Act amendments brought by activist lobby group GetUp! during the election campaign succeeded in adding thousands of otherwise ineligible voters to the electoral roll. Post-election commentary reports the increased informal vote. It highlights the contrast in the Australian electorate between those fighting to exercise their right to vote, and those fighting not to vote.
Here's another contradiction: some citizens cannot be placed on the roll at all. Excitement surrounding the election and the resultant hung parliament contrasts with the continuing disenfranchisement of a significant number of Australians with intellectual disabilities or mental illness.
According to section 93 of the Electoral Act, a person meeting age, citizenship and other requirements of enrolling to vote cannot enrol if they are ‘of unsound mind ... incapable of understanding the nature and significance of enrolment and voting'. Section 29 of the Disability Discrimination Act makes it unlawful to ‘exercise any power under a Commonwealth law to discriminate against another person on the grounds of...disability...', yet the Electoral Act remains unchanged. It remains to be seen what would happen if it were challenged.
The focus of many of the Australian Electoral Commission's initiatives are (like most disability initiatives) focused on physical disability. Although the AEC's latest disability action plan appears also to consider those with intellectual, psychiatric, sensory, neurological, and learning disabilities, legislation does not provide them all with a vote.
To be fair, the AEC is making strides by providing information and assistance to a number of diverse and possibly marginalised electors. An inquiry into electoral accessibility for people with disabilities by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission a decade ago provided the impetus for a number of them.
Mobile polling teams bring portable booths to electors unable to visit a polling place, in some hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and remote areas. Some stationary polling places are selected based on accessibility, and publicised accordingly.
Early votes, available to all citizens, are useful if managing work commitments or travelling arrangements. But more importantly, early votes benefit potentially disenfranchised voters: those ill, infirm or approaching childbirth (or caring for someone who is); in hospital; in prison or detained; unable to attend for religious reasons; or regional electors more than 8 kilometres from a polling place.
The AEC respects community diversity by providing electoral information in 21 languages, and a telephone interpreter service. At polling booths, trained staff provide assistance to voters if the managing polling