According to an announcement by the Australian Electoral Commission, it turns out that out of the 90,000 people we knew were added to the electoral roll in time for the fked postal survey on marriage equality, a massive 65,000 of them were aged 18-24.
That means that a huge two-thirds of the people who got their arses into gear to make sure they could have their say were Australia‘s youth. Excellent work, you guys.
Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said that in the two weeks leading up to the close of the rolls, the AEC website had a fucking huge 3 million visitors, compared to the usual 90,000 they would normally have. He also said that between the 8th and 24th of August, they processed 933,000 enrolment transactions total. Yuge.
This news should help soothe some fears that marriage equality activists have expressed about the amount of young people still not enrolled to vote, and it should hopefully scare the absolute living shit out of the LNP, because by forcing the postal vote survey into existence, they have ensured that a shitload more young Australians will be going to the voting booth next time an election rolls around. Good, wonderful stuff. Taste the delicious schadenfreude. Yum yum.
If you were previously enrolled, or are one the new people who have enrolled, please make sure your efforts don’t go to waste, and when you receive your ballot after September 12, fill that sucker in and return it.
If you are inspired to actually get out there and do even more than just returning your own vote, the ‘Yes’ campaign has a shiny and wonderful new website for you to visit, and to find ways to get more involved. They are specifically looking for people, especially straight allies, to pick up a phone on behalf of the LGBTQI community and make some easy calls to get more people to return their ballots. We can do this.
