Analysis: Federal Seat of Longman the silent voters who don't vote meaningfully
Looking at the Federal Seat of Longman, regarding elections or by Elections it's noted that almost a quarter of voters either did not vote or put effort in spoiling their vote by voting informally, surprising isn't it, or is it?
The numbers show clearly that in the 2018 By Election, on the rolls, a total of 111,784 people could have voted.
The detail is in the numbers in this by election resulted in 92,960 (86.13%) did vote.
Staggering 18,824 (13.87%) did not vote, and adding a further 5,649 (6.08%) from those that did vote but the votes were incomplete and so informal.
A total of 24,473 (19.95%) contributed nothing to the final outcome.
Back to 2016 Federal election in the seat of Longman 105,026 on the rolls at 91.68% turnout. Informals came in at 8,217 (8.53%) and 8,741 (8.32%) didn't bother to vote which means 83.15% of the vote made a difference and 16.85% of the vote contributed nothing
Now lets go back to 2013 Federal election in the seat of Longman 94,014 on the rolls at 93.85% turnout. Informals came in at 4,473 (5.07%) and 5,786 (6.15) didn't bother to vote which means 88.78% of the vote made a difference and 11.22 % of the vote made no contribution to the result.
The pattern we see here is with each election as years pass in Longman are either not voting at all or if they do make it to the ballot box produce a non vote and the sheer number of people doing this is getting bigger and bigger with every election 11% in 2013, 16 % in 2016 and now 19% in 2018.
The question is why are the non contributors to elections increasing in number and could it be we reach a third of the electorate not vote meaningfully by the next election.
Are the non voters disenchanted with the candidates, is it policy by Government, a general dislike of the leaders of the majors or is it a growing trend to apathy to politics in general, maybe just maybe we are all sick of the frequent elections.
Is people power the answer, and is resonance with the community important. Clearly in one electorate of Mayo in South Australia at the Super Saturday By Elections, showed that one candidate did resonate well with that electorate and with a bare bones amount of money, but with over 800 volunteers went on to secure an even bigger margin as a safe seat of an independent.
The next Federal Election is due by May 2019, it will be interesting to compare the notes of this story with the result.