The Victorians banned from voting

“Disenfranchisement explicitly treats incarcerated people as though they are not members of the Victorian community”

More than 2000 Victorians will be prevented from voting at the upcoming state election.

Under current laws, Victorians in prison serving a sentence of five years or more are prevented from voting in state elections, and are removed from the electoral roll.

There were 6690 people in Victorian prisons as of the end of September, with about 33 percent serving sentences of five years or more. This equates to about 2200 people who will be banned from voting in the state election on 26 November.

There have been long-running campaigns to give people in prison the right to vote in state and federal elections, something which advocates say will help with their reintegration into society and reduce recidivism.

Criminal justice policies are driven mostly by state governments, and those in prison are heavily impacted by them.

There are also significant concerns over the ability of those in prison who are eligible to vote to do so, and around a lack of facilitation of this by prison authorities.

In a submission to a federal inquiry into the 2022 election, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) called on people in prison to be allowed to vote across the country.

“The restriction of voting rights for people in prison is a form of disenfranchisement which heavily affects already marginalised people,” the VALS submission said.

“The over-incarceration of Aboriginal people means that disenfranchisement disproportionately affects Aboriginal communities which are already neglected by political processes.”

It’s estimated that 0.6 percent of Aboriginal in Australia cannot vote, while just 0.075 percent of non-Aboriginal Australians are restricted from voting.

“Denial of the right to vote to people serving prison sentences constitutes an additional punishment over the jail term itself,” the VALS submission said.

“Disenfranchisement explicitly treats incarcerated people as though they are not members of the Victorian and Australian community, at odds with the goal of rehabilitative interventions.

“VALS is of the view that denying the right to vote to people in prison is inconsistent with human rights obligations and counterproductive. Disenfranchisement from the electoral roll contributes to a sense of broader social disenfranchisement which obstructs rehabilitation and stigmatises people who have been in prison.”

At a federal level, people in prison serving a sentence of three years or more are not allowed to vote.

Voting laws different across Australian jurisdictions. In South Australia and the ACT, all people in prison can vote, regardless of the length of their sentence.

In New South Wales and Western Australia, those serving a sentence of one year or more cannot vote.

Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania restrict voting rights for people serving a prison sentence of three years or more.