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Registering to Vote in Oz? Be Quick.

by Jordan Yerman | April 4, 2007 at 01:26 pm

826 views | 5 Recommendations | 1 comment

A friend of mine sent me this article, which is a petition to repeal legislation passed in Australia that only allows voter registration on the same day as the calling of the election. A group called GetUp is aiming to overturn this ruling with a grassroots campaign of their own. The "news" here is the unrealistically small window of availability here: Voting is only really in the public mind once an election is looming.

This legislative change has a hugely negative impact on unregistered voters or voters with a mobile lifestyle (i.e. young people)-- if they cannot make it in to register on that one day, then they are frozen out of the electoral process. Scary stuff. So, if you're able to vote in Australia, register now so you don't get left out.

The Federal Government has passed extraordinary legislation that will close the rolls for new voters at 8pm on the very night the election is officially called. In the last election, 83,000 first-time voters enrolled in the first week after the election was called. Hundreds of thousands more registered at their new address. But this time they won't get that chance, unless we spread the word immediately.

Thanks, Leigh!

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Kaitlin

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:52 on April 4th, 2007

Also, don't Australian residents get fined if they don't vote? Basically this is saying "you have one day to register or you don't get to vote AND you have to pay a fine as a result."

Any Australians that can back me up on this?