Oz Politics Blog

You have probably seen the national media advertising campaign encouraging all Australians to value their vote and to enrol before this year’s federal election.

If you have changed address since the last election the chances are that you have been removed from the electoral roll (or will be by the time the election is called), and you will need to re-enrol. Obviously, if you turned 17 years since the last election, you wont be on the roll and you will need to enrol before you can vote.

In previous years, there was a small window of time after the election was called, in which you could enrol or re-enrol. This election year, however, that window has all but closed.

You should enrol to vote before the election is called. In most circumstances, your enrolment must be with the Australian Electoral Commission before 8pm on the day the writs for the election are issued. If you are not enrolled, your vote wont be counted.

You can verify your enrolment here.

If you need to enrol or re-enrol, get the appropriate form from here and follow the instructions.

Update: Overseas Australians need to go here for information about i) enrolling if the elector is overseas and not yet enrolled, and ii) registering as an overseas voter if they are overseas and already enrolled. [Thanks to Berian James for this tip].