Luv yer work, Forrest Gumpp.

Your problem is, of course, that you are looking for facts, not headlines.

I wonder where the author got his numbers from.

It's not as if they were even worth inventing, given the flimsy nature of the rest of his argument.

So, Mr Williams: any comment on the arithmetic?

Thank you for the compliment, Pericles.

It is nice to know that at least one other person is following this thread. It really is a shame that the author included no links to 'all [the] evidence', nor has he come back with any explanation of his claims in the light of their seeming contradiction with respect to the enrolment levels of young people (of which he makes so much) in the current AEC figures.

The phrase ' a shrinking electoral roll' was for some reason running around in my head during the last day or so, so I googled it in 'pages from Australia'. The top listing was this:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:7poIY16yFfkJ:arts.anu.edu.au/democraticaudit/papers/20080214brent_autoenrol.pdf+"A+shrinking+electoral+roll"&hl=en&gl=au&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg8ggYNMbCZgnowK9Ob0peFxwUgEgQu2YRp7KcGtPbm5GtGpySlmRlogjUhIyOSqX1EJLqt62ZyV4I2u5tKOt5M2ykmiq9PJEjUuKzAuxFVPLX1JUuoL7NDzzX8_4SO77ZfXGP9&sig=AHIEtbTzgM_W1qR5ylHNpAZmrBYEbv-Daw

The link is to the Google quick view of a paper written by Peter Brent and published under the auspices of the Democratic Audit of Australia, an ANU related organisation, titled 'Time to introduce automatic enrolment in Australia'. It can be downloaded as a PDF. It is difficult to believe it is a paper of which George Williams would be unaware, given automatic enrolment is something championed in his article.

It alerted me to the fact that he and I may be talking about different things. It may be that only around half of the 18-year-old cohort is currently enrolled. I have been talking about published official figures resulting from the processing of pieces of paper in the form of enrolment applications by the AEC.

The current real figures for 18-year-olds, obscured from our view by inclusion in a two cohort bracketing, may indeed reflect only 50% enrolment in that group, and thereby may hang a tale.

The current 17, 18, and 19-year-old enrolments reflected in the official figures represent enrolment applications processed since the introduction of 'proof of identity' requirements in April(?) 2007. Could it be that the 'proof of identity' requirement has started to bite, and if so, what might that really be telling those of us with eyes to see?

That dodgy enrolments purporting to be made by young persons were entering onto the electoral rolls?

Automatic enrolment: the road to secret dictatorship.

A news item on page 11 of the Sydney Sun-Herald of 1 August 2010 was headlined "1.3 million voters left in cold in election day". See: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/13-million-voters-left-in-cold-on-election-day-20100731-110jp.html

It claimed:

"There were 85,996 additions to the roll
before it was closed, bringing the total
number who can vote to 14.03 million."

Sadly, Stephanie Peatling did not make it clear in the news item since when it was that the 85,996 additions to the rolls had been made.

There were, according to AEC figures published on its website, 13,961,671 electors enrolled for all of Australia as at 30 June 2010. See: http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/elector_count/index.htm . By the close of the rolls on 22 July 2010 there had been a nett increase of 68,857 enrolments nationally, to a total of 14,030,528 enrolled.

The discrepancy between Stephanie Peatling's figure of 85,996 and the AEC nett increase as at CoR of 68,857 over the total as at 30 June 2010 is presumably explained by there having been not less than 17,139 removals of names from the roll during the same period. The relevant statistics are really the total numbers of additions compared to the total removals. Seemingly not given. Dismal reportage.

Should it be that Stephanie Peatling's 85,996 represents the number of new enrolment applications lodged on just Monday 18 July, then it is worth observing that that amounts to an average of around 573 new enrolments per Division. Given the short time available for effecting such enrolments following the call of the election being announced on the preceding Saturday, it is to be expected that most of such enrolments would have been lodged at Divisional offices on that Monday.

I wonder whether such volumes of traffic were actually experienced in Divisional offices, and if not, how any deficiency in such traffic might be explained?

What's the true position, I wonder?

I must make a correction to my post of Tuesday, 27 July 2010 at 10:29:18 AM. The opening sentence of the third paragraph reads:

"It also shows 353,705 electors 19-20 years of age
enrolled nationally as at the same date."

That sentence should read:

"It also shows 353,705 electors 18-19 years of age enrolled nationally as at the same date."

59,831 17-year-old provisional electors were shown as being enrolled, nationally, as at 30 June 2010. This represented around one in four of the 17-year-old cohort of the population.

The AEC figures for the close of rolls on 22 July 2010 show only 12,252 17-year-olds as being enrolled.




On the face of it, it seems unlikely that 47,579 persons out of the 30 June 2010 total of 59,831 provisional electors would be turning 18 between 30 June and 22 July 2010.





The close of rolls figures for 22 July 2010 show a total of 397,055 electors as being 18 or 19 years old. The figure for 18 and 19-year-olds as at 30 June 2010 was 353,705 electors. There occurred an increase in this age group, of 43,350 electors in 22 days. Without knowing the differentiated numbers of 18 and 19-year-old electors in the grouped total as at 30 June 2010, it is difficult to say for sure that the increase for such a grouped total by 22 July 2010 represents the nett result of both 17-year-olds having turned 18 and 19-year-olds having turned 20, but it seems a reasonable conclusion.

If that be so, then it would seem to indicate that there were around 147,000 18-year-old electors enrolled as at 30 June 2010, representing enrolment of around 60% of the 18-year-old cohort of the population.


What remains unexplained is the apparent concentration among the 17-year-old provisional electors as at 30 June 2010 of birthdates that would see so many seemingly turn 18 in just those 22 days. Even if every 17-year-old in the population had effected provisional enrolment, the most one could expect to see turn 18 over such a period would be around 14,000 persons.

Surely around 47,000 removals of unsubstantiated provisional enrolments could not have occurred in this 22-day period, could there? What explains this seemingly non-statistical change in the number of provisional electors enrolled?

With the High Court having ruled upon the unconstitutionality of some of the provisions of the Electoral Integrity Act 2006, it is interesting to note the reactions to that news as reported in The Australian. This is a link to both a news item and all the comments posted in connection therewith: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/getup-wins-high-court-challenge-to-electoral-roll-cut-off/comments-fn59niix-1225902071456

What I find amazing is that there is not one reference among the 91 comments to the fact that, as of 14 July 2010, provisional enrolment of 16-year-olds on the electoral rolls is now permitted.

In this connection, I also note that the AEC Elector Count tabulation of electors by age group that I downloaded from here: http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/elector_count/index.htm , does not have a column provision for 16-year-olds. I would hope and trust that, in the light of the High Court ruling, the AEC will promptly publish an updated version of this document, from which we will be able to see just how many enrolment applications from what age groups were in reality subjects of the court's ruling.

It would also be very helpful if the AEC could make it clear exactly how many of the 12,252 17-year-old provisional electors shown in its pre-high-court-ruling figures will turn 18 by polling day.

The present lack of clarity led to this posting on another thread ( http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3840#94766 ):

"Whilst this number, 12,252 provisional electors, was it to
represent persons who would turn 18 by polling day, might not
be statistically improbable was the whole of the 17-year-old
cohort of the population to have effected provisional enrolment
prior to 30 June 2010, the fact is that only around one quarter
of that cohort were shown as being enrolled as at that date.
This means, if indeed the 12,252 provisional electors shown in
the CoR figures are ones shown on AEC records as turning 18 by
polling day, that there are around four times as many provisional
electors in this sub-category as would be normally expected."

What is the real position?