Compulsory voting and remote Indigenous electoral disengagement

… this new governor

Awakes me all of the enrolled penalties

Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by the wall

So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round

And none of them been worn; …

Measure for Measure, Act one, Scene two.

 

I previously wrote about remote electoral engagement in an August 2020 post on voting turnout in the NT election (link here). In that post, I suggested that there appeared to be strong and increasing levels of Indigenous disengagement with the electoral system and government more generally.

 

On 26 July 2023, Deputy Australian Electoral Commissioner, Jeff Pope, gave a very useful seminar at the ANU on the topic of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's participation in Australian elections and referendums. According to the pre-seminar blurb

Since 2017, there has been year-on-year growth in the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate. Despite these steady increases, in 2023 the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate remains lower than Australia’s national enrolment rate. Mr Pope will outline the broad history of Indigenous voting rights since Federation and consider some of the challenges that Indigenous people may face with fully participating in elections and referendums. Mr Pope will discuss how the AEC is using an evidence-based approach and working with Indigenous communities and service providers to deliver a range of initiatives to support Indigenous electoral participation. 

 

The seminar delivered on this plan, and provided a very useful overview of the AEC’s strong efforts to lift enrolment rates for Indigenous citizens in particular. He referred extensively to recently updated data on the AEC website. Key data points included that nationally, mainstream enrolment rates are now 97.5%; there are just over 18 million Australians eligible to vote and just over 450,000 of those citizens are not enrolled.  Nationally, Indigenous enrolment rates have been increasing, and are now 94.1%. The estimated Indigenous voting age population is 567,528, and of which an estimated 33,319 citizens are not enrolled. Mr Pope described the Indigenous enrolment rate as the ‘highest ever’ (link here). Mr Pope noted that enrolment rates in remote regions were much lower. The AEC data (link here) indicates that in the WA and the NT, Indigenous enrolment rates are 86.9% and 87% respectively, while in SA, the rate is 92.7%. All other jurisdictions exceed 95%.

 

Close assessment of this data indicates that there have been extraordinary shifts in enrolment. For example, over the past two years, the estimated number of Indigenous unenrolled nationally has fallen from 112,000 in June 2021 to 33,000 in June 2023. In the NT, the unenrolled level has dropped from 16,000 to just over 7,000 over the same period. These are quite extraordinary shifts, and suggest that the AEC has in recent years begun to put real effort into addressing these issues.

 

Notwithstanding these efforts, voter turnout has been dropping substantially over recent decades (link here).  In fact, according to AEC data, the turnout for the House of Representatives in 2022 was 89.8%, the lowest turnout rate in 101 years (link here).  This suggests that around ten percent of at least 17 million enrolled voters, or 1.7m enrolled voters and after taking into account unenrolled voters, over 2 million potentially eligible voters did not vote. Over the period 2001 to 2016, mainstream turnout dropped around 2% in each of the top ten electoral divisions by turnout (link here table 4, p. 25). Clearly there are national trends in play.

 

However, electoral divisions in remote Australia with high proportions of Indigenous potential voters are at the very bottom of the voting turnout hierarchy. The two electoral divisions with the lowest voter turnout in the country are Durack in WA and Lingiari in the NT. In 2001, turnout was 86.81 and 80.55 respectively. In 2016, turnout in Durack was 82.03% and in Lingiari it was 73.7% (link here table 4, p. 25). There are strong grounds for thinking that remote communities in Queensland and South Australia display similar characteristics, albeit the evidence is not immediately available given the larger non-Indigenous populations in the relevant remote electoral divisions.

 

It was clear from the ANU seminar presentation that the AEC is acutely aware of the current trends, and is devoting significant efforts, backed by senior level support and commitment, to addressing these challenges. The broad strategy at this point appears to be twofold: to maximise enrolment by removing blocks to enrolment; and to expanding electoral education.

 

Notwithstanding the AEC efforts (which to be clear I am not criticising, and indeed support wholeheartedly), there are a couple of broader points worth making.

 

First, it seems likely that the extraordinary jump in the Indigenous population between 2016 and 2021 due in large measure to increased identification has probably flowed into the improvements nationally in Indigenous enrolment (link here). These changes in identification are overwhelmingly focussed on urban and regional Australia.

 

Second, it struck me that the notion that we have compulsory voting in Australia is under serious threat as potential voters disenchanted with the responsiveness of governments to their concerns voted with their feet (so to speak) and abstain from engagement with the electoral system. In such an environment, engaging potential Indigenous voters in remote regions is going to be doubly difficult. In addition, the fact that voting turnout in electoral divisions with high percentages of Indigenous potential voters in remote Australia is extraordinarily low suggests the possibility that there are additional drivers of low voting turnouts, or that at the very least, that the disengagement with the nation’s political system is qualitatively different in remote and non-remote Australia.  

 

These broader points suggest that there are deeper structural issues in play beyond the way in which our electoral systems are designed and administered.

 

Given this background, it seems to me that it is time that those Australians who support substantive democracy and/or compulsory voting should begin to think more seriously and more innovatively about how to make our political system more responsive to voter concerns. Moreover, there is likely to be a requirement to consider different approaches for supporting improved governance responsiveness in remote and non-remote regions. These are issues that extend way beyond the systems of voting we have and the valuable efforts of the AEC to increase enrolment and educate potential voters about voting systems and the like.

 

In the ANU seminar, I pressed the AEC Deputy Commissioner about the levels of enforcement in relation to both enrolment and voting through the lens of incentives. I asked whether the AEC has an in principle position on the use of incentives to encourage enrolment, and what their policy was in relation to non-voting in remote regions.

 

In relation to incentivising enrolment, I didn’t get a clear answer. At the back of my mind was the approach taken in relation to Research & Development in Australia, where the inability of firms to capture the entire benefits of innovation investment means that they limit investments, and as a result there are sub-optimal levels of innovation investment nationally. To address this market failure, the public sector provides tax incentives (worth billions of dollars each decade) to incentivise firms to undertake an optimal level of national R & D. If there are structural impediments to enrolment, and we value 100 percent electoral participation, perhaps governments should consider ways to incentivise electoral enrolment either nationally or in some more targeted manner? While it may seem that the significant improvements in enrolment make such a policy otiose, it is worth remembering that enrolment status is dynamic and vulnerable to degradation over time.

 

In relation to enforcement of compulsory voting in remote regions, the AEC indicated that Commonwealth fines are comparatively low, but that they use the option of prosecutions ‘judiciously’. I understand this response as I think the use of the legal system to enforce voting would be perceived negatively by many Indigenous citizens, and would likely be counter-productive and backfire. But education, while important, may not be an adequate strategy in the face of deep seated disengagement from a social system that is seen by many remote people as ineffective at best and racially exclusionary at worst. There is thus a need to think more broadly.

 

A large part of the problem is that parliaments (in Canberra and in states and territories) are in large measure controlled by the Executive arm of Government (whereas the normative theory is that the Executive is drawn from elected members and should implement the will of the parliament). Moreover, there are serious question marks over the extent to which the Executive arm of governments of all persuasions are themselves democratic (link here and link here). In this situation, and in the absence of reforms to strengthen parliamentary supremacy over the Executive (or even just greater Executive transparency), it is incumbent on policymakers and advocacy interests to explore innovative ways of ensuring that voters feel like their votes do count and influence outcomes. Off the top of my head, one option would be the greater use of deliberative democracy to work through contentious policy issues. Other options include greater transparency over political donations, and strengthening the operation of FOI laws. These sorts of ideas resonate closely with Indigenous calls for greater co-design of policies. There may well be other ideas that might make a positive contribution.

 

Of course, I am not holding my breath on these reforms. We already live in a nation where around 11 percent of eligible voters do not participate in federal elections (and probably state and territory elections) If voter turnout continues to fall across the board, then we should not be surprised to wake up one morning and realise that we no longer live in a society where the governments we elect have the authority that comes from being selected by the widest possible cross section of the community. Such a society is more prone to political dissension and conflict whether through anarchic chaos or direct action.

 

In particular, the longstanding challenges across remote Australia will be that much harder to solve if governments learn that they do not need to response to citizens needs because citizens’ votes are either diminished or non-existent; and if Indigenous citizens ‘learn’ that voting is not relevant and not compulsory and that governments do not listen even if they enrol, vote and participate in the political system. Indeed, there are strong grounds for the view that Indigenous citizens in remote Australia have already learnt this, and are voting with their feet. The nation’s growing challenge is to create the preconditions for Indigenous citizens in remote Australia to unlearn those conclusions.

 

28 July 2023