AEC details massive effort to get more voters than ever enrolled before Voice to Parliament

A record number of Australians were enrolled to vote in October’s Voice to Parliament referendum, marking an incredible feat for the electoral commission.

More Australians were enrolled to vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum in October than in any other electoral event in the country’s history.

By the time polls closed in September for voting, 97.7 per cent of Australians eligible to vote were on the electoral roll.

It’s a historic achievement, one that the Australian Electoral Commission has long been striving for, but it hasn’t come easy.

In 2010 just 89.7 per cent of eligible Australians were enrolled to vote – 13.9 million out of the 15.5 million people who fit the criteria.

But before the referendum, 17.67 million of the 18.09 million eligible Australians were listed.

Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said getting the enrolment rate so high was no easy feat, and had been made possible because of a concerted effort.

Mr Rogers said only 15 years ago, the goal of 95 per cent enrolment was accepted as near-impossible.

But things changed not long after Mr Rogers took over the top job, when the AEC moved from its “opt in” system to an “opt out” system.

The continuous roll update – which was when the AEC would chase after Australians they believed had moved – was deemed no longer viable because so many people “stopped answering mail”.

In 2012/13, the AEC “bit the silver bullet” and moved to a “federal direct enrolment update”.

“So if I get a bit of data from a trusted source (namely a government agency), I would write to you and say ‘hey, I know that you’ve moved. I’ve put you on the roll unless you want to write back and tell me I’m wrong’.

“So it fundamentally changed the nature of how we do enrolment, and there’s been a steady growth since.”

AEC Commissioner Tom Rogers says getting the electoral roll so high has been years of hard work in the making. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Beyond the national roll, the AEC also celebrated wins in the Indigenous vote and youth vote in the referendum.

The youth roll – those aged 18 to 24 – ticked over 90 per cent for the first time.

Meanwhile, more than 94.1 per cent of Indigenous Australians were enrolled to vote – up from 84.5 per cent at the end of 2022.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visiting Uluru ahead of the 2023 Voice to Parliament Australian referendum. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But the biggest issue the AEC faced in 2010 continues to persist today.

In 2010, just 74.5 per cent of people living in the Northern Territory were enrolled to vote.

Over the last decade, the AEC has given the NT – and its large Indigenous population – close attention.

By close of rolls before the referendum, 91.7 per cent of the territory was enrolled to vote.

Mr Rogers said the growth rate in the Indigenous roll over the last six months before the referendum was extraordinary.

He said there were a number of things the AEC had done to drive the rate up.

First, the AEC partnered with local community groups to assess how the AEC could deliver services “in a way that they want”.

“The big one was we did a trial to try and match our processes with the way in which the community is living,” he said.

“So many of them didn’t have street addresses and our whole thing is about street addresses. So we worked on a system that still delivered high integrity … and we did some trials with community mail bags, with email addresses when we had those, with SMS and a whole range of other things, and it worked.”

AEC Commissioner Tom Rogers said the organisation changed the way it engaged with remote Indigenous communities. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Rogers is a realist and knows it would be “almost impossible” to get to 100 per cent, but says there is now an onus on the agency to keep the rate steady.

While the AEC is celebrating recent inroads, it’s wary of the work ahead to maintain the record high rates, especially with another federal election fast approaching.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could call an election for anytime between August 2024 and May 2025.

“There’s money involved and expense,” Mr Rogers said.

“We’ve got to try and grow it to the extent that we can because there are still people that we’re trying to get.

“But if we went beneath that 97.7 per cent, I think the other challenge is to focus on youth and Indigenous and other cohorts to try and drag that up.”

Originally published as AEC details massive effort to get more voters than ever enrolled before Voice to Parliament