Is technology outpacing compulsory voting?

Deep beneath the statistical returns for last year’s federal election lurks a troubling indicator. Our tradition of compulsory voting is set to collide with technology, with unpleasant consequences for hundreds of thousands of Australians. The problem isn’t the record low turnout rate among voters, although it’s related to that. The official House of Representatives figure for the 2016 election was 91.0 per cent, down from 93.2 per cent in 2013 and the lowest turnout since the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924. Those numbers are misleading. Official turnout was low because of the excellent state of the electoral rolls, which are estimated by the Australian Electoral Commission to contain 95 per cent of people in the country eligible to vote – the most complete electoral roll in recent history and, possibly, since the first Commonwealth roll was constructed in 1902. Turnout as a proportion of estimated eligible voters – as opposed to names on the roll – actually increased a little on 2013, from 86.2 to 86.4 per cent. This, due to the improved roll, was a very fine thing. This figure points to the contradiction at the heart of our system.