Editing Voter suppression (section)

===Australia===
[[Australian citizens]] are expected to [[Voter registration|enroll]] to vote, and it is their responsibility to update their enrollment when they change their address. Even so, an estimated 6% of eligible Australian voters are not enrolled or are enrolled incorrectly. They are disproportionately younger voters, many of whom might neglect to enroll when they attain [[voting age]].

In 2006, the [[Howard government]] legislated to close the electoral roll much earlier once an election was called than before. Previously, voters had been allowed seven days of grace after an election had been called to arrange or update their enrollment, but new voters were now allowed only until 8:00&nbsp;p.m. on the day that the electoral [[wtit of election|writ]] was issued to lodge their enrollment form, and those who needed to update their addresses were allowed three days. In [[Australia]], the [[Prime Minister of Australia|Prime Minister]] effectively has the right to determine the date of the election as long as constitutional rules regarding the maximum term of the parliament are adhered to. That measure was therefore likely to result in many newer voters being precluded from voting in the first election for which they were eligible because the time to arrange their enrollment once an election is called had been greatly reduced.

The measure was widely seen as an attempt at voter suppression aimed at younger voters<ref>Orr, Graeme [http://inside.org.au/court-by-surprise-the-high-court-upholds-voting-rights/ "Court by surprise: the High Court upholds voting rights"], 6 August 2010.</ref> since surveys had shown that younger voters are more likely than the general population to vote for the [[Australian Labor Party]] or the [[Australian Greens|Greens]] than Howard's [[Liberal Party of Australia|Liberal Party]].<ref>Brooker, Ron [http://resources.news.com.au/files/2011/07/22/1226099/942923-aus-file-young-voters.pdf "Youth Federal Election Voting Intentions: A Statistical and Graphical Analysis of Newspoll Quarterly Data 1996–2010"], The Whitlam Institute, June 2011</ref> The government denied that it was trying to suppress some voters and insisted that the purposes of the reform were a smoother administration of the elections and the reduction of the possibility of electoral fraud. However, the [[Australian Electoral Commission]] had requested no such reform, there had been no evidence of significant electoral fraud, and the Australian Electoral Commission had been dealing with hundreds of thousands of late enrollments without significant problems for decades.

In July 2010, the [[left-wing politics|left-wing]] lobby group [[GetUp!]] launched a challenge to the law. The [[High Court of Australia]] expedited the hearing so that a ruling could be made in time for the [[2010 Australian federal election|2010 federal election]]. The majority ruling struck down early closing of the roll and reinstated the old rule allowing voters seven days grace to arrange or update their [[Voter registration|enrollment]].