Helping people without a home enrol to vote in October’s local council elections
24.07.24
Local council elections will be held in Victoria by post this October for all councils except Moira Shire Council. Enrolments to vote in this election (or updates to enrolments) close at 4pm on Wednesday 7 August.
Enrolment is not compulsory for people experiencing homelessness who are not already enrolled. However, it is compulsory to maintain enrolment if you are currently enrolled.
Council to Homeless Persons is urging people working in Victoria’s homelessness services to help clients enrol to vote or, if required, update their enrolment. It only takes five to ten minutes. Given the very high level of disenfranchisement of people without homes, it is important that we in the specialist homelessness sector do our part to help people maintain this core right of citizenship in Australia.
How to help someone to enrol
There are two main steps to helping someone without a home to enrol.
1/ Check enrolment
Checking enrolment can be done on the Australian Electoral Commission website at www.check.aec.gov.au
The primary task for an individual is to recall the streets on which they might currently be enrolled as living on. When checking if a person is on the roll, remember to try searching for the First and Middle names (if they have them).
2/ Update enrolment or enrol for first time
If a person has an Australian driver’s licence, Australian passport number, Medicare Card number, or Australian citizenship number, it’s fairly simple to enrol or update their enrolment online.
Fill out a No fixed address enrolment form on the Australian Electoral Commission website with the person you are supporting. They can enrol to vote in the electorate:
where they last lived for at least a month
where one of their family currently lives
where they were born, if neither of the above applies
If the person does not have any of the above forms of identification, they should fill out a paper form.
You can still help someone to update their enrolment or enrol for the first time using the paper form, however you must also be:
willing to confirm their identity, and
enrolled yourself.
This method will require printing an Enrolment for persons with no fixed address in Victoria form from the Australian Electoral Commission and filling it out in hardcopy.
The paper form can then be submitted in a number of ways, including by post, fax, uploading online, or in-person. Further details are included on page one of the form.
Within three weeks of receiving the enrolment form, the Australian Electoral Commission will confirm enrolment.
Voting
Postal voting will be used for the upcoming local council elections. The ballot will be mailed to the postal address you put on the enrolment form. This postal address can be a homelessness service.
Useful notes
Someone with no fixed address, for the purposes of the AEC enrolment form, includes people who are:
itinerant and don’t have a real place of living, that is a place to which you intend to return to live, even if you are temporarily living somewhere else
experiencing homelessness – if you are living in crisis or transitional accommodation or if you have inadequate access to safe and secure housing.
Enrolment is not compulsory for persons with no fixed address who are not already enrolled. However, it is compulsory to maintain enrolment if you are currently enrolled. People without a home should use the use the Enrolment for persons with no fixed address in Victoria form to update their enrolment. Voting is optional once a person is enrolled as having no fixed address.
For more information, visit www.aec.gov.au