Over the past two days the counting has continued at the AEC and none of the candidates has the 50% plus one vote required to be declared elected. As Di Bell predicted weeks ago, this election will go down to preferences and we are yet to see how closely electors followed the how to vote cards of the candidates.
One of the striking features of the count is the low turn out. In the Federal Election of November 2007, the turnout was 95.88%. The AEC virtual tally room shows this year, in an electorate with an enrolment of 97, 583, a turnout of only 78.76%.
If over 20% of the electorate didn’t vote, we might ask how representative this vote really is? Why did more than one on five electors not vote? To be sure some didn’t know they had to vote. “Do I have to vote?” was the most frequently asked question on the campaign trail. One wonders what these electors thought all the corflutes were doing on the stobie poles along the roads of Mayo?
Some electors chose not the vote. We certainly heard that people were frustrated that they had to return to the ballot box so soon after the last Federal election. We also heard that people were angry that Labor was not fielding a candidate.
A further feature of this election is the high Informal vote which according to the AEC virtual tally room stands at 4.70%. By comparison in 2007, the Informal vote was 2.76% and that was a drop of 1.88% from the previous election in 2004. The large field may have confused some electors. Some may have chosen to vote informal. Others may have been confused by how to vote cards.
What does the low turnout and high informal vote say about the state of civics education in Australia? What are the consequences for representative democracy?
If we add the Informal vote and the no-show voters together, we have an election being decided on the basis of less than 75% of the electorate. Is this what compulsory voting looks like in 2008?
Di Bell and her kitchen cabinet will be meeting tonight to discuss the election, lessons learned and plans for the future.
