Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918

1918 Act

The 1918 Act replaced the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 and the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902.^[1] It replaced first-past-the-post voting with instant-runoff voting ("preferential voting") for the House of Representatives and the Senate. (Preferential voting had been pioneered by Queensland in 1892.)^[2] 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 Act also repeated the special jurisdiction of the High Court of Australia as the Court of Disputed Returns in federal election matters,^[4] initially established by Part XVI of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1902.

1921 amendment

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.^[5][6]

1924 amendment

Compulsory voting at federal elections was introduced in 1924,^[7][8] as a condition of the Country Party agreeing to form an alliance with the then minority Nationalist Party. Compulsory voting saw voter turnout increasing from 59.36% to 91.39% at the 1925 federal election.

1949 amendments

The Chifley Government amended the Electoral Act in 1949, in time for the 1949 federal election, as follows:

• the number of senators was increased from 36 to 60 (10 from each State), an increase of 24, and the number of members of the House of Representatives from 74 to 121, an increase of 47.
• the single transferable vote under a proportional voting system for the Senate was introduced.

Although in 1948 (effective in 1949) Australian nationality law had been altered to create an Australian citizenship, the nationality criterion for the franchise remained that of being a British subject.

1962 amendments

In 1962, the Menzies Government extended the franchise to Indigenous Australians at federal elections,^[2][9] though enrolment was voluntary.

1973 and 1974 amendments

Changes to the Electoral Act in 1973 by the Whitlam Government included:

• the qualifying voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 years.
• the ACT and Northern Territory became entitled to representation in both Houses for the first time in 1974.
• the allowable quota variation of the number of electors in each division of a state was reduced from 20% to 10%.^[10]

1984 amendments

Changes to the Electoral Act in 1984 by the Hawke Government included:

• an independent Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) was established to administer the federal electoral system.
• the number of senators was increased from 64 to 76 (12 from each State and two from each Territory), an increase of 12, and the number of members of the House of Representatives was increased from 125 to 148, an increase of 23.
• the group voting ticket voting system (the original "above-the-line" voting) was introduced.
• the registration of political parties was introduced to permit the printing of party names on ballot papers.
• public funding of election campaigns and disclosure of political donations and electoral expenditure was introduced.
• the compulsory enrolment and voting requirement was extended to cover Indigenous Australians.
• the franchise qualification was changed to Australian citizenship, though British subjects on the roll immediately before 26 January 1984 retained enrolment and voting rights.
• the grace period after an election is called before the electoral rolls are closed was extended to seven days and the time that polling places closed was changed from 8pm to 6pm.^[2]
• Section 282 was added, requiring the AEC to conduct a recount following a dissolution under section 57 of the Constitution as if only the elected candidates had been named on the ballot papers, and only half the number were to be elected.^[11] The constitution requires the Senate to allocate long and short term senate seats, and this provides one way of determining which senators are allocated which terms. As of 2016, this method had not yet been applied,^[12] despite two bipartisan senate resolutions in favour of using it as well as two double dissolution elections (1987 and 2016).

2016 amendments

In 2016 the registered preference part of the Senate group ticket voting system was abolished,^[13] to avoid undue influence of preference deals experienced in 2013,^[14] and especially cascading preference deals (which are unlikely to be obvious to most voters).^[15]