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In 1962, the Menzies government amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act to give Indigenous people the right to enrol and vote in Commonwealth elections irrespective of their voting rights at the state level. If they were enrolled, it was compulsory for them to vote as per non-Indigenous citizens.
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. [3] 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 ...
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 gave all Aboriginal people the option of enrolling to vote in federal elections. [36] It was not until the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Act 1983 that voting became compulsory for Aboriginal people, as it was for other Australians. [37] [38]
In 1961 a Parliamentary Committee was established to investigate and report to the Parliament on Aboriginal voting rights and in 1962, Menzies' Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that all Indigenous Australians should have the right to enrol and vote at federal elections.
By 1962–65 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were granted universal suffrage. Specifically, the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 gave all Aboriginal people the option of enrolling to vote in federal elections, [1] whereas the previous Commonwealth Electoral Act 1949 gave Aboriginal people the right to vote in federal elections only if they were able to vote in their state elections.
In 1962, the Menzies government's Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that all Indigenous Australians should have the right to enrol and vote at federal elections (prior to this, Indigenous people in Queensland, Western Australia and some in the Northern Territory had been excluded from voting unless they were ex-servicemen). [46]
Male Māori Australians were first given the vote through the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902, which specifically limited voting enrollment to persons of European descent, and aboriginal natives of New Zealand, [1] in an effort to allay New Zealand's concerns about joining the Federation of Australia. [2]
The Electoral Act has since been amended to almost eliminate exhausted votes. Section 268(1)(c) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 now has the effect of making the vote of any elector that does not preference every candidate on the ballot paper an informal vote as opposed to counting the vote until the voter's preference exhausts.