The ten thousand Australians who can’t vote

Many people in Australian prisons will not be allowed to vote at the upcoming federal election, in what advocates say is a breach of their human rights.

There are at least 10,000 Australians behind bars who will not be allowed to vote at the upcoming federal election.

Under Australian law, someone in prison on a sentence of more than three years is not allowed to vote while they are incarcerated, in contrast to many other countries including Canada, Spain, Ireland, Switzerland and most Scandanavian countries.

Lawyers and advocates for incarcerated people argue that restricting the right for people to vote violates their human rights and jeopardises their rehabilitation and connection with society.

People in prison are disproportionately impacted by a range of government policies but are often barred from voting at all.

There are an estimated 10,000 people in prisons across Australia serving sentences longer than three years and who are banned from voting in the upcoming May federal election.

There are also significant participation issues among eligible voters in prison, with issues around enrolling and accessing the material needed to place a vote.

In the 2013 election, only three people in the entire Silverwater Correctional Centre voted in the federal election. And it was revealed in 2017 that correctional service officers in several states had barred Australian Electoral Commission staff from entering prisons, preventing them from enrolling people to vote and helping them to cast a ballot.

A fundamental human right

According to Greg Barns, the National Criminal Justice spokesperson for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, there is no justification to deny prisoners the right to vote.

“Refusing to allow prisoners to vote in the federal, or any election for that matter, is unfair and amounts to extra punishment. It also undermines rehabilitation,” Barns says.

“Prisoners are still part of our community when they are sentenced. They should not be stripped of the right to vote - a fundamental human right. It amounts to a further punishment on them.

“And it further alienates prisoners from society. Government policies impact on prisoners and their families on the outside and they should be allowed to exercise their human right to have a say on which party or candidate they support.”

Laws regarding people in prison voting differ from state to state.

In New South Wales, only incarcerated people serving setences of less than 12 months are allowed to vote, while in Victoria those serving a setence of less than five years can vote.

In Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory a person in prison on a sentence of less than three years can vote.

Both South Australia and the ACT allow anyone in prison to vote.

Reinforcing structural racism

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) used a recent state criminal justice inquiry to push for Victoria to allow all people to vote in state and council elections, and to take the lead in pushing for federal reform on the issue.

“All people in prison should have the right to vote,” VALS CEO Nerita Waight says.

“It is an important way to keep them connected to society as they work towards rehabilitation and it is a human right. The evidence is clear that allowing people in prison to vote is good for everyone because it promotes social cohesion and safer communities.”

The voting restriction also disproportionately impacts First Nations Australians, Waight says.

“The number of Aboriginal people in prison who are denied the right to vote is eight to nine times higher than the number of non-Aboriginal people in prison who are denied the right to vote,” she says.

“This over-policing and discrimination traps our people in the quicksand of the justice system and denying them voting rights is one mechanism of that trap.”

The Waitangi Tribunal in New Zealand found that restrictions on people in prison voting disproportionately impacts Maori people due to an overrepresentation in custody, and that allowing these people to vote helped them to feel as though they had a greater stake in society.

The Tribunal also found that allowing people in prison to vote helped with their rehabilitation and the political participation of their families and communities.

“Voting restrictions in Australia have the same impact for our people,” Waight says. “It reinforces the structural racism we are subjected to.”