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Tell Government Your Overseas Voting Experiences!
The Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) is presently conducting an inquiry into the 2007 Federal Election. This is your chance to make your voice heard on voting and electoral matters as an overseas Australian, whether you voted in the 2007 election or not. Make a submission by the deadline of Friday 16 May 2008 using our e-mail submission template. We set out some ideas for your submission here.
Read our "What You Need to Know About Voting in Australia While You Live Overseas" brochure now. Download an A4 version here, and a US letter size paper version here.
For important current information on voting and enrolment, and links to the AEC website, as well as a summary of the SCG's advocacy work on the expat disenfranchisement issue to date, go to this page of our site.
Are You Disenfranchised?
If you can no longer vote in Australia it is very important to register your dissatisfaction with the system with federal politicians in Australia, and to encourage your family and friends who still have the vote at home to do the same. All the contact details for federal parliamentarians are on the Australian Parliament House website.
On our page Current Limitations in the Law, we have set out in detail the present rules in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 on overseas voting. The information below should help you establish definitively if you belong to the ranks of the disenfranchised!
If you were on the Electoral Roll when you lived in Australia, and you are now overseas, it is a good idea to check with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to ascertain definitively whether you are still on the Roll or not, just so that you can be really sure of your status. To do this, use the AEC online enrolment verification facility.
Alternatively, send the AEC an e-mail. Tell the AEC your full name, your date of birth, and the complete address at which you believe you were last enrolled. Ask whether you are still on the Electoral Roll. Usually the AEC will respond within a day or so, telling you simply that you are still on the Roll at that address, or that you are not. We advise you to keep the AEC's response.
If you have only been away for a relatively short period, and you voted in the 2004 election, you may in fact still be on the Roll, even if you have not told the AEC expressly that you are living overseas. If this is the case, you will only need to register as an overseas elector in order to maintain your right to vote while still away. For this, use the Application to Register as an Overseas Elector form, available from the AEC's Forms page. Note that you must submit this form within three years of ceasing to reside in Australia.
If you establish that you are definitely no longer on the Electoral Roll, the issue then is whether you qualify to re-enrol from overseas. You must do this within three years of ceasing to be resident in Australia, using the Application for Enrolment from Outside Australia form, available from the AEC's Forms page.
If you left Australia more than three years ago, and you are no longer
on the Electoral Roll, then you are disenfranchised because you do not qualify
now to re-enrol from overseas. Please e-mail
us and tell us if this is your situation. You are certainly not
alone. Consult our page Help
us Extend the Right to Vote.
Have You Lived in Australia for One Month or More in the Last Three Years?
There is one quirk in the law which does make it possible for some people who have been disenfranchised overseas to get back on the Electoral Roll. It is not immediately apparent from the legislation or the information on the AEC's website.
If you have been back in Australia for one month or more, in the last three years, then you do qualify to re-enrol, either while you are back in Australia, or within three years of leaving again. This is because in order to register on the Electoral Roll for a Subdivision in Australia, you must be resident at an address in that Subdivision for one month.
Let's imagine, for example, that you are an Australian citizen and you have lived in Belgium for seven years, and during that period, because you missed one election, the AEC deleted your name from the Electoral Roll. You have not voted for about five years. The AEC has confirmed that you are definitely no longer on the Electoral Roll, and told you that you do not qualify to re-enrol from overseas because you left Australia more than three years ago.
Every year you go home to Australia, but only for about ten days over Christmas.
Then, one year, you change jobs in Belgium, and decide to have six weeks holiday
in Australia between finishing your old job and starting your new job. You
go back to Australia to stay with your parents during those six weeks. In
those circumstances, you would qualify to enrol to vote in the Subdivision
where your parents live after you have lived with them for one month. You
could enrol to vote while you are in Australia, and then, within three years
of leaving, apply to be registered as an eligible overseas elector. Alternatively,
you could wait until you left to go back to Belgium and then just enrol from
overseas directly, within three years of leaving after your six-week sojourn
at home.
Minor Amendments to the Electoral Act Minimally Improve the Situation
Elsewhere on this site we detail the work that the SCG has engaged in to try and achieve amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, including our submissions to the JSCEM's Inquiry during 2002/2003 and its resulting recommendations. The Government accepted the JSCEM's June 2003 recommendations, and subsequently, on 21 July 2004, provisions in the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Access to Electoral Roll and Other Measures) Act 2004 that changed the two-year window to three years entered into force. This is a small improvement, but will not re-enfranchise the many overseas Australians who left Australia more than three years ago and are no longer on the Electoral Roll.
Your Right to Vote Overseas Disappears if You Do Not Act
Here is a case which shows how quickly you can become disenfranchised, related to us by an overseas Australian. Tom left Australia in July 2004. He did not know that there were any formalities he had to comply with, and did not contact the AEC to tell them he was going to be away for several years. He was backpacking in a remote part of South America when the October 2004 federal election was held, and he did not vote in person at an Australian mission overseas. Nor did he apply for a postal vote. Afterwards, the AEC discovered that Tom had not voted. AEC officials checked and found he was no longer living at the address in Australia at which he had been enrolled. They therefore removed him from the Electoral Roll early in 2005. Then in early August 2007, knowing that a general election would be held shortly, Tom decided that he should get organised to vote in London, where he is now living. He contacted the AEC and was told that he was no longer on the Electoral Roll. He wanted to re-enrol in time for the 2007 election, but more than three years had passed since he left Australia, so he did not qualify to enrol from overseas. Only thirty-seven months after leaving Australia, Tom's right to vote overseas is gone. Tom will only be able to enrol again if he returns to Australia to live for one month or more.
2006 electoral law amendments make the situation even more critical. For the 2007 federal election, once the Prime Minister calls the election, the electoral roll will close virtually immediately. The old seven day window after the election was called to get your enrolment in order with the AEC before the roll closed is gone.
If you are just away from Australia for a few weeks or months, on a holiday
or business trip for example, and you are definitely on the Electoral Roll
in Australia, then you do not have to worry about registering as an eligible
overseas elector. Really, we are most concerned with people who are gone from
Australia for a period exceeding a few months, in other words, for example,
people who go overseas to study for a year, or perhaps for work for an indefinite
period. These are the people who run the risk of disenfranchisement if they
are not aware of the administrative formalities they need to comply with.
More Information
Other pages in the Overseas Voting section of our website will be of further help:
· Overview
· Current Limitations
in the Law
· Help Us Extend the Right
to Vote
· Direct Representation
for an Overseas Electorate
· Voting in Countries
Where You Are Not a Citizen
· Statistics
and Reports on Overseas Voting
Further documentation can be found in the Overseas Voting folder of our Archives.
