Australian Electoral Commission

Australian Electoral Commission

Agency overview
Formed	21 February 1984
Jurisdiction	Commonwealth of Australia
Headquarters	Canberra
Employees	2,166 (at April 2013)[1]
Minister responsible	Michael Ronaldson, Special Minister of State
Agency executives	Mr Tom Rogers, Electoral Commissioner The Hon. Peter Heerey QC, Chairperson Mr Brian Pink, Non-judicial member
Parent agency	Department of Finance and Deregulation
Website	www.aec.gov.au

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is the federal government agency in charge of organising, conducting and supervising federal elections and referendums. State and local government elections are overseen by separate Electoral Commissions in each state and territory: New South Wales elections are conducted by the New South Wales Electoral Commission, in Queensland it is the Electoral Commission of Queensland; in Victoria it is the Victorian Electoral Commission; in South Australia it is the Electoral Commission of South Australia; in Tasmania it is the Tasmanian Electoral Commission; in Western Australia it is the Western Australian Electoral Commission; in the Northern Territory it is the Northern Territory Electoral Commission and in the Australian Capital Territory it is the Australian Capital Territory Electoral Commission.

The Australian Electoral Commission is also responsible for seat boundaries and redistributions, and maintains the Commonwealth electoral roll. Under the Joint Roll Arrangements, the AEC maintains the electoral roll for the whole of Australia. This roll is used by the state and territory Electoral Commissions to conduct their elections.

The AEC also plays a leading role in electoral education and industrial voting (votes on industrial action).

History and structure

The AEC was first established in 1902, as a branch of the Department of Home Affairs. In 1973 it became the Australian Electoral Office, a name it retained until 21 February 1984 when it became the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), a Commonwealth statutory authority.

The AEC was created by and operates under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. It consists of a chairman (a Judge or a retired Judge of the Federal Court), the Electoral Commissioner and a non-judicial member (usually the Australian Statistician). The Electoral Commissioner has the powers of a Secretary of a Department under the Public Service Act 1999 and the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1998. The Chairperson and the third, non-judicial member both hold their offices on a part-time basis.

AEC has a National Office in Canberra and State Offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

Each House of Representatives electorate has a Divisional Returning Officer responsible for administration of elections within the division. Each State also has an Australian Electoral Officer responsible for administration of Senate elections.

Since the loss of 1,400 ballots during the recount for the 2013 Western Australia Senate election and the subsequent 2014 special election the AEC has been under significant scrutiny.^[2]

Responsibilities

The AEC's major responsibilities are to run federal elections, by-elections and referendums, as well as maintaining up-to-date electoral rolls. The AEC publishes detailed election results and follows up electors who fail to vote.

The AEC is also responsible for monitoring the activities of registered political parties, including receiving returns from parties of donations and expenditures, and the publication of the information. It also disburses public funding of political parties.

The AEC is answerable to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters^[3] of the Parliament of Australia, and must report on how elections were carried out and the success of the elections in general. The AEC also plays an electoral education role, aiming to educate citizens about the electoral process by which representatives are elected, and by which the Australian Constitution is changed (referendums).

Changes to electoral enrolment before an election

In 1984 a change to the Commonwealth Electoral Act allowed for the grace period after an election is called before the electoral rolls are closed to be extended to seven days. Many people either enrol or change their enrolment details in this period. Prior to the 2004 federal election there were 423,993 changes to enrolment were processed in the close of roll period; of these, 78,816 were new enrolments and 225,314 were changes of address.^[4]

For the 2007 Federal Election, new laws were passed to reduce the grace period for new enrolments to 8 pm on the same business day as the issue of the writs, and for those who need to update their address details, they are given until 8 pm on the third business day after the issue of the writs.^[5]

On 6 August 2010, the High Court of Australia issued a ruling in Rowe v Electoral Commissioner which extended the close of rolls by one week, allowing additional eligible voters to vote in the 2010 Federal Election.^[6] Supplementary lists of additional voters were distributed to polling places, and these voters were also contacted by the AEC via postal mail.^[7]

List of Australian Electoral Commissioners

Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn has announced his resignation, which will take effect on 4 July 2014. Killesteyn will be taking personal leave until that date, with Deputy Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers acting in his place.^[9]

See also

• Albert Langer
• Australian electoral system
• Compulsory voting

Notes

External links

• The Australian Electoral Commission website
• The Electoral Council of Australia website, the consultative council between the AEC and state and territory electoral authorities