Ninety-thousand Australians have been added to the electoral roll in time for the borked-as postal vote on marriage equality. That takes the total number enrolled up to 16 million out of a population of about 24 million people.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, those numbers are a record high: the largest number of registered voters since Federation in 1901.
Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said: “An estimated 95% of eligible Australians were enrolled at the 2016 federal election, increasing marginally to 95.3% at 31 July. We expect this to reach a record high once processing has been completed.”
Since the non-compulsory survey was announced in early August, the AEC have processed 765K enrolments and changes to electors’ personal details. By Thursday’s end, when the window to enrol/update your info closed, 165K transactions were yet to be processed – but they damn sure will be, probably over the weekend.
So while you’re out livin’ it up on the weekend (~cue teen movie soundtrack~) think about AEC staffers working hard to process all this brand new enrolment junk.
What that means is the total number enrolled will likely be even higher next week, with final figures expected from the AEC next week.
The news of the massive increase in voters should assuage some concerns raised by marriage equality advocates that over half a million Aussies aged under 40 were missing from the electoral roll just last week, with only about 37K new enrolments processed by 20 Aug.
The survey is scheduled to be posted out from 12 September. Plz vote yes. Or better, yet do more than that. The Yes campaign’s brand new fancy as website has some stellar suggestions/opportunities to get involved.
