In a deeply exasperating piece of news, it appears that this election saw one of the lowest turnouts Australia has seen since the introduction of the compulsory vote.
According to the Age, under 91% of people able to vote actually did – and that’s including donkey voters who drew dicks on the ballot paper. The analysis of the voting figures from May 18 already suggests that turnout was lower than the 2016 election, and it could be the worst voting turnout since the 1920s. May we remind you that compulsory voting was introduced after just 55% of people actually voted in the 1922 general election. We have that shit for a reason.
This info is an even worse kick in the pants because 96.8% of eligible voters actually were enrolled to vote, which is the highest percentage pretty much ever. We have the marriage equality postal vote to thank for that, which got shitloads of young people onto electoral rolls.
Unfortunately, despite being on the roll, it seems that those young people… just forgot to show up on election day, maybe? ‘Cos about 1.5 million people just didn’t vote. In some seats, less than three-quarters of eligible people actually cast a valid ballot. The fuck?!
And it appears to be overwhelmingly the youths who are responsible for this dismal result. The Age reports that Melbourne, which is the youngest seat in the country, had a turnout under 82%. Other seats with median ages under 30 showed similar trends. Sorry to say it mates, but that is a piss poor effort. YOUSE GOTTA VOTE.
The ANU‘s Australian Election Study head researcher Ian McAllister told the Age that it seems like the trend has something to do with younger people not being involved in the whole voting thing.
They’re not socialised into the whole experience of voting. They’re busy with their lives and even though they’ve enrolled to vote they’re just not that interested in going through with the process.
Put your hand up if you didn’t vote because you had a big night on the Friday and felt too dusty to walk to your nearest school. Now go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. Then in three years, go get your democracy snag, put some numbers in some boxes and feel the small and weird bubble of pride that comes with exercising your democratic rights.
