Well, it’s over but with no clear result nationally.  In Lingiari a combined effort by the Independents and the Greens have brought about a decline in the sitting member’s majority – so not such a safe Labor seat with a 13% swing against Warren Snowden in the primary voting.

The most worrying trend is the large number of informal votes and the very low voter turnout.

In the early 1990s I worked in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Electoral Information Service (ATSIEIS) run by the Australian Electoral Commission.  Our job was to teach people about the levels of government and ensure that everyone was on the roll.  It was not compulsory for Aboriginal people to vote until 1984 and this program was designed to assist people to be involved and informed in the political process.

The success of the program meant that voter turnout went from 79.9% with informal voting 5.8% in 1987, to 89.4% and 3.4% in 1990, 88.8% and 3.1% in 1993, and 89.1% and 3.39% in the 1996 federal election.  This was the highest voter turnout ever recorded in a federal election in the Territory.  Unfortunately the program was the first one that John Howard cut the day after his success at this election.  In 2004 voter turnout was down to 77.7% and informal votes up to 4.94%, in 2007 81.26% of voters turned out with 4.85% informal votes.  At this election the informal votes are currently 7.34% and at the last check, just 67.99% of voters have turned out at the polls.  There will be a slight increase when all votes are counted.

Many of the remote mobile polls and the polling stations in larger centres did not cater for people who could not read or write, or who did not speak English.  I witnessed this myself, seeing AEC staff struggling with Aboriginal naming conventions, illiterate voters and those who couldn’t speak English.  When the ATSIEIS program was operating we trained Electoral Community Assistants in every community and in the major centres to assist voters.

The AEC has funded a new electoral education program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voters that is like many other modern programs – it ignores the success of the past and wastes time and resources in a program that has failed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders at this election.  The ATSIEIS program was Australia-wide and 17 field officers were able to contact all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander votes through our community networks within 10 days of an election being called.  The electoral roll was kept clean and up to date and people understood the electoral process.  In the fifteen years since the program was scrapped voter turnout has plummeted, Aboriginal participation at local, Territory, and Federal elections has fallen, and fewer Aboriginal people are nominating as candidates.  At the last Territory election two members were elected unopposed.

Electoral education should form part of the national curriculum.  All citizens should be given the opportunity to understand our system of government and voting so that they can make an informed decision on election day.