Election type

Dr. Graeme Orr (Professor of Law School, University of Queensland, Australia)

"Commonwealth Electoral Act 1949 cl 12 relaxed rules for ’authorized witnesses’ precisely to facilitate ’vote[s] recorded outside Australia’: it allowed the witness to be either any military person or any person employed in the public service of Australia, who was stationed outside Australia. Under cl13 the ballot itself had to be witnessed by an authorized witness. Hence, someone could apply for a postal ballot before leaving Australia, to be forwarded to an overseas address, and use the ballot overseas provided they could get to an Australian consulate or military location to complete it. This reform applied from the December 1949 election.

For people caught overseas, especially those caught before an election was called, things improved again in under Commonwealth Electoral Act 1952 cl 5. An email from an Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) official with an historical memory, via Phil Diak, AEC Media Officer, 6 August 2012, explains:

”Up until December 1952, the Commonwealth Electoral Act did not appoint or recognize Assistant Returning Officers overseas. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1952 introduced the position of Assistant Returning Officer ‘at a place outside Australia [...] From December 1952, that is for the Senate election in1953 and the following House election in 1954, applications for postal votes could be made to an Assistant Returning Officer at ‘a place outside Australia’. That would be most Australian embassies and consulates. [...]

The second reading speech (30 October 1952) said that the bill was to let Australians overseas at the time of an election record their vote with the least avoidable inconvenience. The Minister said that, hitherto electors overseas had only been able to make an application to and receive ballot papersfrom a returning officer in Australia. [...]

For the 1983 election, a further amendment permitted an elector attending at the office of an Assistant Returning Officer overseas (and DROs offices in Australia) to make an application for a postal vote orally, that is without completing a written application form."

Referendum (Machinery) Provisions Act 1984, Part IV Postal voting