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Australian Electoral Commission
This page provides the status of participation in the 2025 federal election.
Compulsory voting is a key part of Australia’s democracy and citizens are provided a range of voting service options and encouraged to participate through a vast program of communication. Australia is one of only around 13% of democracies across the world that have compulsory voting. While voter turnout has been declining globally, the turnout rate for the 2025 federal election (approximately 90% at the time of writing) is on track to be slightly higher than it was at the 2022 federal election. It is also a turnout rate that remains the envy of many democracies around the world.
Turnout is measured as a percentage of voters who actually voted against total enrolment. It is important to note that voter turnout trends in recent years can be somewhat misleading – this is due to rising enrolment rates throughout the past decade that have led to a record enrolment rate of 98.2% for the 2025 federal election. There are actually more people participating than ever before.
The AEC is proud of the comprehensive range of voting options provided to all Australians and works hard to achieve high voter turnout but is acutely aware that there are many factors that influence turnout that are beyond the AEC’s influence, scope or control. The level of informal votes at the 2025 federal election (approximately 5.5% nationally for the House of Representatives) is broadly comparable to what it was for the previous federal election in 2022.
Enrolment is the first step to participation in a federal election. Enrolment rates are extraordinarily high in Australia and measured against data of the eligible population.
Enrolment rates have increased from election to election since 2010 (90.9%), to a record high nationally for the 2025 federal election of 98.2%.
This remarkable achievement is the result of significant effort throughout the past fifteen years. This includes the 2012 introduction and daily maintenance of the AEC’s federal direct enrolment and update program.
Young people are traditionally under-represented not just on the Australian electoral roll but for electoral participation globally.
Australia’s youth enrolment rate fluctuates regularly given the turnover in such a small age bracket who are coming of voting age and needing to take action to get onto the electoral roll initially. In addition, it is a cohort of voting age Australians that have a higher tendency that others to have changing circumstances with their residential address (again, requiring enrolment action).
Generally, the youth enrolment rate sits around the mid-80s in percentiles for any given quarter. For the 2025 federal election it was estimated to be 92%.
Indigenous enrolment rates are estimated annually. As at 30 June 2024 (the last estimate prior to the 2025 federal election), the Indigenous enrolment rate was 92.9% nationally. This rate is up significantly in recent years – from a national estimate of 74.7% as at 30 June .
While the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate dropped slightly between 2023 and 2024 estimates, an additional 63,000 Indigenous Australians were enrolled in that time, reflecting the fast rate of growth of Indigenous Australians.
The next calculation of the estimated Indigenous enrolment rate will occur after 30 June 2025 and be published around August 2025.
Voter turnout is traditionally measured against the electoral roll – it is a metric that measures what proportion of enrolled Australians cast a vote.
However, people’s general understanding of the term ‘turnout’ often doesn’t consider enrolment. Given enrolment rates have continued to increase, and with record enrolment in the 2025 federal election, turnout rates can appear comparatively lower than if an assessment was simply made against the number Australians eligible to enrol. Measuring votes cast against the eligible population is called a ‘participation rate’ and should also be closely considered whenever assessing any turnout trends.
For the 2025 federal election, we anticipate a turnout rate of around 90%, which will be a slight increase on the turnout rate at the 2022 federal election and 2023 referendum. Voter turnout rates in recent elections are as follows:
When measuring the number of votes cast against the number of Australians eligible to cast a vote (eliminating enrolment from the turnout equation), the trendline is somewhat different.
The turnout rate for Lingiari is projected at the time of writing to be around 62%. This is down from 66.83% at the previous federal election in 2022 and part of a broader trend of declining turnout in Lingiari.
Increased enrolment has had an impact, so declined participation in the division of Lingiari is not as much as what the turnout rate’s decline suggests.
NT enrolment rates:
Lingiari voters (raw numbers):
In addition to increased enrolment, another factor that has had an impact is the redistribution in the Northern Territory that moved parts of Palmerston (a traditionally higher turnout area) from Lingiari into Solomon.
The later than usual wet season could also have contributed, although the statistics show that there was a slight increase in votes cast with the AEC’s remote voter services teams in Lingiari – following an increase in services and significant effort in that space for the 2025 federal election.
The AEC only has so many levers in our control. The AEC cannot influence motivations to vote beyond our education of the electoral system and voter services. Political motivations and other societal factors undoubtedly have an impact on people decisions to vote or not – nationally but in the division of Lingiari specifically.
In addition to Lingiari (outlined above), turnout rates are typically lower in particularly regional electoral divisions. Final turnout rates are not available at the time of writing but are once again looking lower than the national average in rural electoral divisions like Durack (WA), Leichhardt (QLD) and Kennedy (QLD).
The AEC offers remote voter services and postal voting (including people registered as general postal voters) to people living in regional and remote areas of Australia. As is the case with the division of Lingiari, there is a limit to the AEC’s reach and there are factors beyond the AEC’s remit of enrolment, voter services and communication that impact a person’s motivation to cast a vote.
The AEC will always admit a ballot paper to the count where the voter’s intention is clear, however if the ballot paper is not filled out correctly, or any marks or words other than the numbers, could mean your vote is not counted. How to complete ballot papers correctly is a key part of the AEC’s suite of communication, education and engagement activities.
Some informal votes are deliberate (e.g. blank ballot papers), while others appear inadvertent (e.g. incomplete numbering).
The national rate of informal voting for the House of Representatives at the 2025 federal election (approximately 5.5% at the time of writing) is broadly comparable to what it was for previous federal elections.
House of Representatives informal voting rates:
There are many factors that appear to affect the levels and/or types of informal voting at federal elections – this includes the number of candidates in an electoral divisions and lower levels of English proficiency in a geographic area.
Each federal election, the majority of the ten divisions with the highest levels of informal voting are divisions located in Western Sydney with a population that has a high number of people who speak a language other than English. At the time of writing, this again appears to be the case for the 2025 federal election.
In recognition of this issue, the AEC ran a significant communication campaign for Australians with low English proficiency. During the 2025 federal election period the AEC’s advertising campaign was translated into more than 30 languages and ran through in-language media channels, interpreter services were available for people to access, in-language information was available at all 8,000 voting venues and bi-lingual staff assisted voters at specific polling places of need.
The AEC also engaged with in-language media representatives, offered in-language media interviews and sent in-language information materials through appropriate community third parties. In the leadup to the election AEC Community Electoral and Participation Officers also ran hundreds of in-language election education sessions to assist local residents to understand how Australian election work and how to cast a formal vote.
The two divisions with the greatest number of candidates in the 2025 federal election were Riverina (NSW) and Calwell (VIC) with 13 candidates on each of these ballot papers. These electoral divisions both experienced increases in the rate of informal voting with informality at approximately 11.2% and 10.3% respectively.
The national rate of informal voting for the Senate at the 2025 federal election (approximately 4.5% at the time of writing) is projected to be slightly higher than at previous federal elections.
Senate informal voting rates:
The AEC has conducted research on various aspects of the Australian electoral process and participation. This can be accessed via the AEC’s research page.
Other pieces of research relevant to participation in Australian federal elections includes the following.
The AEC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.