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Electoral rolls

Electoral Rolls can be very useful sources of information such as address, occupation and age. They can help you to track where people were living at different times and, sometimes, other family members who were living at the same place.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the vote

• In 1962, the Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that Indigenous people should have the right to enrol and vote at federal elections, including Northern Territory elections, but enrolment was not compulsory. Despite this amendment, it was illegal under Commonwealth legislation to encourage Indigenous people to enrol to vote.
• It is a common belief that the 1967 Referendum gave Indigenous people the right to vote. This is not true. In fact, few Indigenous people voted before 1967 as few knew their rights. However, some did and it is always worth checking.
• An example is Point McLeay mission in South Australia which got a polling station in the 1890s. Aboriginal men and women voted there in South Australian elections and voted for the first Commonwealth Parliament in 1901 (see Indigenous people and the vote).
• For more information about the history of Indigenous citizenship rights, see the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) web pages: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander - Electoral Timeline and our online exhibition Yes! the 1967 Referendum

Viewing electoral rolls - Current

• You can access current electoral rolls through the Australian Electoral Commission offices.
• The most recent electoral that is publicly available is the 1999. The Australian Electoral Commission does not permit the sale of the electoral in any format.
• Each AEC divisional office has the Commonwealth Electoral Roll for its own State or Territory available for viewing in electronic format. An electronic version of the complete Australian electoral roll is available for viewing only at each AEC State Head Office, ACT Divisional Office and the Central Office in Canberra.

Viewing electoral rolls - Historical

• Older electoral rolls can help with tracing family histories and can tell you things like where people lived and what they did for a living
• Electoral rolls from 1999 and earlier can often be searched at local libraries, state libraries and family history societies.
• Ancestry www.ancestry.com.au contains scanned and searchable electoral rolls from 1903 – 1980 for every state and territory, except SA.
• Older electoral rolls have also published in both microfiche and CD-ROM  format and can be purchased from  Macbeth Genealogical Services and Gould Genealogy and History
• The National Library in Canberra keeps microfiche of the Commonwealth electoral rolls from 1901 to present. Some of these may be slightly imperfect. The NLA also holds a limited number of State electoral rolls on microfiche for the time prior to Federation.
• You may wish to check with your State Library to find out what stocks of microfiche, if any they keep