A Bunch Of Young People Still Need To Enrol To Vote And The Deadline Is Tonight
START BUGGING YOUR FRIENDS.
If you haven’t crawled out from bed yet today, or have spent the entire weekend either in the bush or on an almighty bender, enrolment to vote closes at 8pm tonight. This includes updating your details; if you’ve moved house since the last election, you have until then to change your details. This is important as it might change your electorate and the candidate you’re gunning for.
According to the stats from the Australian Electoral Commission, approximately 340,000 people between 18-25 haven’t enrolled to vote yet. That’s about 18 percent of that age bracket. One in five young people haven’t put their name down for an opportunity that we as citizens of this glorious democracy have the right to seize.
The AEC notes that the younger voting bracket are tricky to get to the polling booth. Many of the 18-25 year olds weren’t eligible to vote in the last federal election and don’t know how it works, others move around a lot and haven’t got their shit together in time. Plus we all procrastinate like crazy, so all these reminders are important.
It’s also come out that young voters could be crucial in deciding the result of the election. Non-partisan social enterprise Y Vote have found that in many marginal electorates, the amount of votes it would have taken to swing the outcome in a different direction was far less than the amount of Gen Y people that didn’t enrol to formally vote. This power is just as clear now with polls as close as ever between the two major parties.
It really doesn’t take much to get your name down on the big roll; in fact it takes five minutes online. You can do it on your phone in the opening credits of today’s Game of Thrones episode. Make a note of it. Throw a little party after work or uni. Sit down with your housemates, your partner, your parents, your favourite pot plants, and enrol together.
It’s worth it, because come July 2, you get to throw your opinions all over a giant piece of paper and then celebrate with a democracy sausage (or P&C bake sale) afterwards.
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