I can't vote!

[Andrushka]

Thought I'd post this for any Aussie DUers that are overseas or planning to live overseas for an extended period - important stuff to know, and wish I knew long before today. I voted in the last fed election, but appear to have been removed from the roll since. I have been in Japan now for ten years, with the long term plan to go back home, but here for the time being.

This is the email reply I got from the AEC yesterday after my enquiry:

I can confirm your last enrolled address was in ********. However, you have been removed from the electoral roll as we
received advice that you no longer reside at this address.

Enrolment from outside Australia is available to eligible citizens who have
the intention of returning to Australia within six years. An application
for enrolment from outside Australia must be made within three years of the
day on which you ceased to reside in Australia. In the event of an
extension of the period overseas an elector may apply for yearly extensions
of their overseas registration.

An application for extension must be made within the three months before
the expiry date of registration. There is no provision under the
Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 for an "expatriate roll". Electors absent
from Australia for less than three years, who intend to return within six
years, may remain enrolled for the address for which they were last
entitled to be enrolled.

Therefore, if you have been living outside Australia for more than three
years, have not registered as an overseas elector and do not intend to
return to Australia within six years, you are not eligible to enrol.

The election where I really, really want to make a difference, and then this news! What a bugger. Still, it won't stop me from donating to my party of choice! (and for the record, it would have been Labour-with-peg-on-nose to kick out the Libs of my former marginal seat, and most definitely the Greens for senate (Go Di Natale!))

[Matilda]

1. They're really cracking down this time.

Thousands of people have been removed from the electoral rolls for not informing the Electoral
Commission of a change of address.

My daughter moved recently, and received a letter from the AEC saying she would be removed from the
roll if she didn't register her new address. We wonder how they knew, and can only assume that the
info came from the ATO, because they wrote to her at her new address. She's politically aware
though, and had already filled out a new enrolment form, and was able to confirm by phone that she
is registered at her new address.

Can't help wondering though, whether this vigilance is aimed at making sure that people do enrol to
vote, or to cut off as many people as possible, given that the most mobile voters are the young,
traditionally more inclined to be Labor or Green voters.

[Andrushka]

2. Interesting point, Matilda

Reminds me of what Andrew Hansen said at the end of Chaser's War the other night:

"Just a reminder: If you're over 18 and haven't enrolled to vote yet - bad luck! Because John Howard changed the rules"

[Esra Star]

3. .

"Can't help wondering though, whether this vigilance is aimed at making sure that people do enrol to
vote, or to cut off as many people as possible, given that the most mobile voters are the young,
traditionally more inclined to be Labor or Green voters."

If the Libs really think this tactic will work, then they are really, really desperate.
Seems like one of those things that can blow up in your face.

Steady as she goes.

I am keeping my eye on Pakistan though. Could get ugly.