When feminist anarchist Emma Goldman said “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal” - she obviously wasn’t anticipating Howard using less blatant tactics to hinder the voters who love him least.
With the November 24th federal elections now announced, eligible voters have until this Wednesday night to enrol, update your addresses and remind any overseas friends who can vote that it’s on. Then hopefully the political ad spam will be over and we can get on with the real thing.
Thanks to the Libs new enrollment legislation - reducing the time period that you can enrol in once the election’s been called - larger numbers of voters will ‘miss out’ on their voter rights this election. With compulsory voting, the figures of 1st time youth voters especially will be influenced, when they’re more pro-Rudd overall. AEC media release + link about enrolling.
Australian Electoral Commision
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has been advising the public during 2007 that there have been important changes to the deadlines for enrolling to vote at federal elections.
“If you’re not on the electoral roll and you’re entitled to enrol, you must fill in an enrolment form immediately and return it to an AEC office by 8pm, Wednesday 17 October,” …
“If you’re already on the roll but still need to update your address details, to ensure your vote you must complete an enrolment form and return it to an AEC office by 8pm Tuesday 23 October”.
Enrolment forms can be downloaded from the AEC website at www.aec.gov.au and are available at any Australia Post outlet or AEC office and now also at any Medicare, Centrelink and ATO office and selected Rural Transaction Centres.
You can check your enrolment online at www.aec.gov.au or by phoning 13 23 26.
And there’s still anarchy, activism, local media, Get Up & You Decide for those too young or stateless to vote to speak for yourselves about the impending state election spin.
*In the 2004 federal election, 136,000 youth voters (aged 18 to 25) enrolled after the election was called. Up to 100, 000 youth stand to miss that chance in 2007.
the idea that if you miss enrolment deadline by a second you’ll banned, fined, mutilated and shot is really ridiculous. shouldn’t we try to encourage people esp young peoples to take part in the democratic process rather than offering punitive measures that make everything feel like such a chore.
this govt does everything possible to make exciting things dour.
as someone who nearly missed the cut-off i can say this gov’t does everything it can to make voting enrolment a difficult and dour exercise. why the strict deadlines? you should be able to enrol to the eleventh hour in my opinion.
I was one of these late enrollers- grrr why make things so difficult, punitive and unneccesary exclusive? Oops I forgot we were talking about the Howard government here.