Австралийское избирательное законодательство: история и эволюция

Australian suffrage law

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 is an Act of the Australian Parliament which continues to be the core legislation governing the conduct of elections in Australia, having been amended on numerous occasions since 1918. The Act was introduced by the Nationalist Party of Billy Hughes, the main purpose of which was to replace first past the post voting with instant runoff voting ("preferential voting") for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Labor Party opposed the introduction of preferential voting. The Act has been amended on several occasions since.

The 1918 Act replaced the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which had defined who was entitled to vote in Australian federal elections, and the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902. The 1902 Franchise Act set uniform national franchise criteria, establishing the voting age at 21 years and women's suffrage at the national level, also a right to stand for election to the Parliament. That Act also disqualified from voting a number of categories of people, including Indigenous peoples from Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands (except New Zealand Maori), even if citizens of the British Empire. A plurality voting system ("first past the post") was established. The legislation also made it clear that no person could vote more than once at each election. In 1908, a permanent electoral roll was established and in 1911 it became compulsory for eligible voters to enrol. Compulsory enrolment led to a large increase in voter turnout, even though voting was still voluntary. From 1912, elections have been held on Saturdays. The voting system was changed by the anti Labor Hughes after the 1918 Swan by election, which saw the Labor candidate win with 34% of the vote due to a split in the anti Labor vote between the Nationalist and Country Party candidates, with 29.6% and 31.4% respectively. The Labor Party opposed the introduction of preferential voting. initially established by Part XVI of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902.

In 1921, the Act was amended to disqualify anyone standing for federal parliament who "has resigned from the Parliament of a State and has the right, under the law of the State, if not elected to the Parliament of the Commonwealth, to be re elected to the Parliament of the State without the holding of a poll". This amendment was made specifically to overrule an act passed by the Queensland state government, which allowed state MPs to automatically return to parliament without a by election if they ran unsuccessfully for federal parliament. The Queensland government reportedly passed the legislation primarily for the benefit of Frank Forde, a future prime minister.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1924 amended the earlier act to require compulsory voting at federal elections. It was introduced as a private senator's bill by Herbert Payne of the Nationalist Party, only the third such bill to pass through federal parliament. The introduction of compulsory voting saw voter turnout increase from a record low of 59 percent at the 1922 election to 91 percent at the 1925 election.

In 1962, the Menzies government extended the franchise to all Indigenous Australians at federal elections, though enrolment was voluntary. The amendment also made it an offence to encourage Indigenous Australians to enrol to vote.

In 2016, the registered preference part of the Senate group ticket voting system was abolished, to avoid undue influence of preference deals experienced in 2013, and especially cascading preference deals (which are unlikely to be obvious to most voters).

On 9 December 2020, the Electoral Act was amended by the Electoral Amendment (Territory Representation) Act to use the harmonic mean method to calculate the entitlement determination for the territories. The amendment came into effect on 15 February 2021.

In September 2021, the Electoral Act was amended by the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Act 2021 and made the rules surrounding the registration of political parties stricter. The tightening of party registration rules was reportedly due to an increase of parties on the Senate ballot, which resulted in the requirement of magnifying sheets for some voters to read the ballot, and a perception that voters would be misled by names of some minor parties. The second change was that parties cannot have names that were too similar to political parties registered before them. This meant that new parties are prevented from registering a party name and/or logo "too similar to an existing party's".