Southern Cross Group: Overseas Voting Overview

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Voting for Overseas Australians

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.

Overview

Voting is not compulsory for Australian citizens outside Australia, but not voting in the next federal election if you still have the right to vote may lead to your future disenfranchisement while you remain abroad. It's never too early to get your enrolment organised for the next election - in fact, acting sooner rather than later may mean the difference between maintaining the right to vote from overseas and losing that right.

Everything you need to know is explained in our "What You Need to Know About Voting in Australia While you Live Overseas" brochure. Click here for an A4 size version and here for a US Letter size paper version. If you have trouble downloading it, e-mail us and we'll post you a copy.

Due to changes to electoral law introduced in 2006, the electoral rolls closed virtually immediately the 2007 election was called.

To check whether you are presently enrolled, use the AEC's online enrolment verification facility.

Join the blog discussion about expat voting on the GetUp! website and share your views and experiences.

For data on voting by overseas Australians in previous elections and referenda, consult our Statistics page.

If you are one of the estimated 500,000 plus Australian citizens of voting age resident abroad who is no longer on the electoral roll, and you are prevented under current law from re-enrolling because it's more than three years since you left Australia to live overseas, you are disenfranchised. We'd like to hear from you.

Roach High Court Case on Constitutional Right to Vote

Is the Commonwealth legislation which disenfranchises so many thousands of adult Australian citizens abroad constitutional? The Australian Constitution does not contain an explicit right to vote and we have no Bill of Rights.

The SCG has not to date taken the expat disenfranchisement issue to the High Court of Australia. However, there was a constitutional voting rights case brought before the Court in 2007 which argued many of the same points that apply to the expatriate situation.

On 30 August 2007, in that case, the High Court made an order that the provisions inserted into the Commonwealth Electoral Act 2007 in mid 2006 which banned voting by all prisoners in Australia are unconstitutional. The reasons for the Court's decision, i.e. the judgment, was published on 26 September 2007. The order means that eligible prisoners now have time to enrol with the AEC and vote in this year's federal election.

Vicki Roach, who brought the High Court case, is an aboriginal woman presently in prison in Victoria for a driving incident. 2006 electoral amendments meant that her right to vote was taken away because the law was amended to state that any person serving a sentence of imprisonment (of any length) at the date of the election was not entitled to vote. Prior to the amendments, the position was that any person serving a sentence of three years or more was disqualified from voting. On 30 August 2007, the High Court said that the 2006 amendment was unconstitutional and that the law in place before the 2006 amendment now applies again.

The Roach judgment is important for all disenfranchised overseas Australians. The Court looks at Sections 7 and 24 of the Constitution, which state that "the people" shall elect the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Who are "the people"? Does "the people" include Australian citizens abroad who have been deleted from the electoral roll and left to live abroad more than three year ago? We believe that the Roach judgment lends some support to the proposition that the provisions in the law which presently disenfranchise many expats may be unconstitutional.

SCG Advocacy on the Disenfranchisement Issue

JSCEM Inquiry into Civics and Electoral Education: 2006-07

On 19 June 2006 the SCG made a major submission to the parliamentary inquiry into civics and electoral education conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM):

SCG Main Submission Document (73 pages)
Annex 1 SCG Letter to Attorney-General, 5 May 2006
Annex 2 SCG Letter to JSCEM, 18 May 2006
Annex 3 JSCEM Letter to SCG, 22 May 2006
Annex 4 SCG Media Release of 17 May 2006
Annex 5 TNT Magazine Article of 22 May 2006
Annex 6 AEC Data on Eligible Overseas Electors, by State, Territory and Electorate
Annex 7 AEC Data on Votes Issued Overseas for the 2001 and 2004 Federal Elections
Annex 8 Suggested Electoral Education Outreach Stategies for Eligible Voters Leaving Australia and Already Abroad
Annex 9 AEC Information for Expatriates, 9 August 2004
Annex 10 AEC Information for Expatriates, 29 September 2004
Annex 11 SCG Brochure "What you need to know about voting in Australia whie you live overseas" (version in use in June 2006)
Annex 12 Version of AEC Overseas Notification Form in use in June 2006
Annex 13 Version of AEC Overseas Notification Form in use as at September 2004
Annex 14 Suggested Information for New Australian Citizens Overseas
Annex 15 Suggested Information for Migrants and Would-be Migrants

See also the SCG's Media Release of 21 June 2006.

On 27 November 2006 we gave evidence at a public hearing in this inquiry. Read the transcript of the hearing here.

The JSCEM finally tabled its report in this inquiry on 18 June 2007. Disappointingly, the many issues the SCG raised were not canvassed at all in that report.

The SCG argued that the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and other government agencies must work a great deal harder to educate departing Australians and Australians already abroad about the rights and responsibilities in Australia's electoral system applicable to them.

To browse all the submissions received by the JSCEM for this inquiry, click here. The terms of reference for this inquiry were quite broad and included "the current status of young people’s knowledge of, and responsibilities under, the Australian electoral system" and the "adequacy of electoral education" as well as other matters. Read the SCG's media release of 17 May 2006. The JSCEM's Report at the conclusion of this inquiry can be downloaded here.

Download a note of an SCG meeting with the AEC in Canberra on 21 April 2006.

Senate Inquiry into Australian Expatriates: 2004-05

Almost 700 expat Australians made submissions to the Senate's Legal and Constitutional References Committee Inquiry into Australian Expatriates in 2004. Many of those submissions referred to the disenfranchisment problem.

The Senate Committee, in its March 2005 Report in the Inquiry into Australian Expatriates, made some far reaching and very good recommendations as to how the law on voting for Australian expatriates should be changed. In particular, the Senate Committee recommended that:

Australian citizens moving or living overseas should be entitled to register as an ’Eligible Overseas Elector’ if they left Australia in the previous three years, or have returned to Australia (for any length of time) in the past three years; and they intend to resume residence in Australia within six years of their departure.

If that recommendation had been accepted and enacted into law, many but not all disenfranchised expats would have been able to enrol and start voting again.

However, when it finally responded to the Report, in December 2006, the Government rejected that recommendation outright. See the SCG's December 2006 Media Release.

The JSCEM Inquiry into the 2001 Election and its Disappointing Resulting Report and Legislative Amendments

On 25 May 2002 the Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) announced its Inquiry into the November 2001 Federal Election. Public submissions were invited by the deadline of Friday 5 July 2002. Submissions received by the JSCEM during the Inquiry in 2002 and early 2003 can be viewed here. The JSCEM tabled its Report at the end of the Inquiry in Parliament on 23 June 2003. The results were extremely disappointing. Even though the meagre changes on overseas voting rules recommended by the JSCEM eventually became law on 21 July 2004, hundreds of thousands of Australian citizens overseas remain disenfranchised. Read the SCG's reaction to the JSCEM's report in its media release of 26 June 2003 and our media release announcing that the amending legislation had been passed of 18 June 2004.

Minor Amendments to the Electoral Act in force since 21 July 2004

The Government accepted the JSCEM's June 2003 recommendations in its October 2003 response, and on 1 April 2004 the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Access to Electoral Roll and Other Measures) Bill 2004 was introduced into the House of Representatives, and finally passed definitively by the Senate on 17 June 004. Read our media release of 18 June 2004 here. The amending Act became law on 21 June 2004, meaning that the two-year window of opportunity for registering as an Eligible Overseas Elector and for enrolling from scratch from overseas has changed to three years. This is a small improvement, but does not re-enfranchise the many overseas Australians who left Australia more than three years ago and are no longer on the Electoral Roll.

The 2002-2003 JSCEM Inquiry

During the 2002-2003 JSCEM Inquiry, the Southern Cross Group encouraged overseas Australians and Australians at home to take the opportunity to make their views known in Canberra on the shortcomings of the current rules on overseas voting.

Regardless of whether or not you made a submission to the Inquiry at the time, or whether you are an Australian at home who can still vote or one overseas who has lost the right to vote, we hope you will join us in our continuing campaign to extend the right to vote to all overseas Australian citizens aged 18 or over.

A Voice at Home for the Australian Diaspora

Our work on dual citizenship has made us think about the voice that Australians overseas have back in Australia. Why was it so difficult for us to make ourselves heard on the Section 17 (of the Australian Citizenship Act 1948) problem and why did it take so long to achieve repeal? Partly it was because very few people in Australia understood how Section 17 impacted Australians overseas - as a community we are just too often out of sight and out of mind. But part of the answer also lies in the fact that Australians overseas do not have a full voice at the ballot box in Australia, and our politicians tend to be driven to act first on issues where there are most votes.

As part of the Southern Cross Group's Submission to DIMA (as it then was) on dual citizenship of 6 July 2001, we canvassed the provisions in Part VII of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 which prevent many overseas Australian citizens from voting. Although we estimated at that time (based on 2000 DFAT figures) that there were around 615,000 Australians overseas aged 18 or over, only 65,086 of those had votes issued to them in the 1998 Federal Election. For the 10 November 2001 Federal Election only 63,016 votes were issued overseas (this figure is stated as 63,036 in the JSCEM's June 2003 Report). Even fewer - 57,955 - votes were issued in the 1999 Referendum on the Republic. Detailed breakdowns of how many Australians voted at each overseas mission on each of those occasions are provided in the Statistics and Reports Folder of our Archives. The Southern Cross Group estimates that the current law could disenfranchise at least as many as 500,000 Australian citizens.

If we scrutinise the situation more deeply, then the problem becomes even more serious. As stated above, we know that only 63,016 (or 63,036) votes were issued overseas in the 2001 Federal Election. But there were only 10,636 people on the Electoral Roll with eligible overseas elector status at that time, of which 5,822 had votes issued to them. Australians resident overseas who would be voting would, in most cases, have eligible overseas elector status. See our Are You Disenfranchised? and Current Limitations in the Law pages for further details. Note that those with eligible overseas elector status who did not vote in the 2001 election would have had their name wiped off the roll in any case as a result of not voting under the current "use it or lose it" provision in the Electoral Act.

Of the 63,016 (or 63,036) votes issued overseas in November 2001, most would have been issued to Australians who were tourists or otherwise temporarily overseas for a short period. This would indicate that the extent of the disenfranchisement problem for Australian citizens living overseas is actually greater than at first glance. When one just considers how many votes were issued overseas compared to the overseas resident population aged 18 or over, it appears that only 10 percent of resident overseas Australians are voting. However, if one compares the number of eligible overseas electors with the number of resident overseas Australians aged 18 or over, then the figure is a miniscule 1.5 percent.

The Right to Vote is a Fundamental Right and a Privilege of Citizenship

We believe that this is a serious issue. In fact, it is a matter concerning the fundamental rights of the individual in Australian society. An Australian overseas is still part of the Australian community, even though they are physically outside Australia's territorial boundaries. All Australians share the common bond of citizenship and the right to vote is a privilege of citizenship. We do not believe that any Government is justified in removing this privilege simply because a citizen is living overseas for longer than a certain randomly-defined period. An Australian overseas who wants to exercise their democratic right to participate in the election of those that make laws and decisions which effect all Australians should have that right.

A case on the constitutional voting rights of prisoners went before before the High Court of Australia in 2007. See the information set out above. The Court has made an order that the 2006 law banning all prisoners from voting is unconstitutional, but its reasons have not been published yet. Click here for further information on Roach v Electoral Commissioner. Read the High Court's 30 August 2007 media release here.

Some Overseas Australians Can Still Vote

It is important to understand that some Australian citizens overseas can still vote. We know, however, that people often do not understand the administrative formalities they have to undertake to make sure that they can still vote while overseas. If you are leaving Australia for any period, you should tell the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). This will prevent your name from being deleted from the Electoral Roll while you are away.

Australians who have been overseas for one election or referendum where they did not vote typically will have been wiped off the Electoral Roll. Until 1998 it was simply not possible to enrol to vote from overseas. Thus, many Australians who had been away for a number of years had no way of re-enrolling once their name had been deleted from the Roll. Since 1998, enrolment from overseas has been possible, but you must submit the relevant form to the AEC within three years of leaving Australia. For those who are long-term away, it is not hard to see that this provision is not very helpful.

If you are one of the few overseas Australians who can still vote by law, we want to help you to understand how to maintain your right to vote while you are away, on our page Current Limitations in the Law. If, on the other hand, you think you are probably disenfranchised but are not 100 percent sure, and you want to establish definitely whether you are still on the Electoral Roll, please read our Are You Disenfranchised? page.

Whether you are an Australian in Australia, or a disenfranchised Australian overseas, or one of the few overseas Australians who can actually still vote, we are asking you to help us in our campaign to have the right to vote extended to all overseas Australian citizens aged 18 or over. Read more on our page Help us Extend the Right to Vote.

You can also read media releases, position papers, letters and articles on the subject of Australian overseas voting in ourwebsite Archives, Overseas Voting folder.

More Information

Other pages in the Overseas Voting section of our website will be of further help:

· Current Limitations in the Law
· Are You Disenfranchised?
· 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 in our Archives.