You Have To Enrol To Vote NOW If You Want Marriage Equality

So you may have heard the news that the government has settled on a way to keep delaying marriage equality in Australia. It’s going to go back and try to get a plebiscite through the senate again (which will almost certainly fail), then it’s going to hold a voluntary postal plebiscite.

That would involve Australia Post sending out a form to every enrolled voter in Australia asking if gay people should be allowed to get hitched, then hoping that people send the forms back.

This is a very bad idea for a bunch of reasons, but one of the main ones is that young people, who overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage, are much less likely to actually participate in it.

That’s why people who oppose marriage equality are backing the postal vote. They think they’ve pulled a swifty on us and figured out a way to block marriage equality by keeping young people from voting.

So there’s one thing you can do: ENROL TO VOTE.

Here’s a very funny meme the Australian Electoral Council made.

The AEC will only send the plebiscite forms to people who are on the electoral roll, and heaps of young people aren’t enrolled yet. Also, young people tend to move houses more, which means the AEC might not know where to send your forms. So you really need to check your details.

But the good news is the whole process takes less than four minutes.

Just go here, make sure you’ve got a valid form of ID, and follow the instructions. Seriously, it takes four minutes and it could make a world of difference to same-sex couples around Australia.

And there’s one more thing you can do: GET YOUR FRIENDS TO ENROL.

If you’ve got a mate who you think probably hasn’t enrolled yet, give them a call, send them a text, send them this article, just send them ANYTHING that will get them to enrol to vote.

We don’t yet know the details of the vote, because the government doesn’t even know. But once the AEC is officially notified of the postal plebiscite plans, which could happen by the end of the week, you only have about seven to 10 days to enrol.

So get cracking, and don’t let the old, white, straight men who run the government screw young people. Again.