Over 1 million students received email reminders from their university to check and update their enrolment last week. Student associations across Australia have also been running ‘enrol to vote’ stalls, enrolling thousands of students on the spot to vote.
“This is the biggest youth voter drive in decades,” said NUS president Sophie Johnston, “It is no mistake that we’ve been running enrolment stalls on over 20 campuses across the country; we know over 80% of young people do support marriage equality, but are also the least likely to get out and vote.”
“Last election saw almost 350,000 young people not enrolled; that’s almost 4 electorates of young Australians who are disenfranchised and not having a say on the political decisions of this country” continued Ms Johnston “Our job now is to ensure these people are enrolled, are having a say and do vote ‘Yes’ to marriage equality.”
Young Australian voters will be a driving force behind a successful ‘Yes’ campaign.
“You just have to look at the UK to see how significant young people are in changing the outcome of political decisions,” continued Ms Johnston, “We’re waiting for the AEC to release specific data on youth enrolments, but we are confident a significant portion of the figures coming out are young Australians.”
“We are here to ensure Malcolm Turnbull won’t get away with an undemocratic, unrepresentative vote on marriage equality; young people are ready to win this fight,” said Ms Johnston
Sophie Johnston National President | National Union of Students
