17% of Australians aged 18-24 not on roll, compared with 7.6% in wider population – a figure expected to dent Kevin Rudd's chances

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Nearly one-fifth of all young Australians are not registered to vote in the 7 September election – more than double the figure for the population as a whole.

More than 160,000 people registered to vote after Kevin Rudd called the election on 4 August, including 71,000 in the final 24 hours before Monday’s deadline.

But more than a million eligible Australians – a third of them young people – are not on the roll.

Around 25,000 young voters aged 18-24 have joined the electoral roll since the last election, but there are still around 400,000 missing.

According to the Australian electoral commission (AEC), 14.7 million Australians of voting age are enrolled, and around 1.2 million (7.6%) are not.

Of 18-24 year olds, 1.9 million are enrolled and 400,000 (17%) not.

The figures are more bad news for Rudd, coming after a slew of bad polls for Labor.

Between 2007 and 2010, Labor's support among 18 to 24-year-olds fell by around 15 percentage points, many of these voters switching to the Greens.

As soon as he resumed the leadership Rudd set about regaining these voters.

In one of his first speeches he addressed them directly: “Let me say a word to young Australians. I understand why you’ve switched off from politics. But come back. We need you; we need your energy. Our challenges are great, but we can overcome each and every one of them.”

His strong social media campaign on his gay marriage pledge in last Sunday’s leader’s debate also targeted support for that issue among younger voters.

Abbott has also had younger voters in his sights for years, regularly appearing on morning FM radio shows and staging a live radio chat during the campaign with pop star Katy Perry, although that fell a little flat when she took him on over his gay marriage stance.

But these electoral roll figures are almost certain to damage Labor more than the Coalition.

A little over one in 10 enrolled voters are in the 18-24 age group, including 11,088 17-year-olds who will be old enough to vote by 7 September.

Indigenous Australians and new citizens are also under-represented.

The AEC said online enrolments had prompted a record number to sign up or update their details. Almost half a million voters updated their details after Rudd called the election, 118,000 of them on Monday before deadlines closed at 8pm.

The roll has increased by 624,000 since the last election, which is “significantly more than the previous comparable period from 2007 to the 2010, when the increase was just over 440,000,” electoral commissioner Ed Killesteyn said.

A spokesperson for the AEC said there were always people who dropped off the roll over the years and did not update until they were prompted by a “call to action” around election time.

“The electoral roll is never as accurate as it is at election time,” she said.

She told Guardian Australia that the AEC estimated that about 85% of updates and new enrolments were occurring online this year.

Historically, about 7% of activity occurs each day in the week after the governor-general issues the writs. Then, in great last-minute tradition, about 35% scramble to catch up on the day of the deadline.

That turned out to be an accurate prediction this time. While each day after the writs were issued saw between 25,000 and 60,000 online transactions, over 180,000 people updated their details on Monday before the rolls closed at 8pm.

But there are still an estimated 1.22m eligible people across all age groups who are not properly enrolled and will have to wait until the next election if they want to vote.

The Northern Territory Electoral Commission estimated it was missing about 28,000 people, and received more than 700 new enrolments since the writs were issued.

NT electoral officer Robert Pugsley told Guardian Australia that Territorians have welcomed the online enrolment service.

“The online access has clearly made significant inroads into the NT’s previously high rate of missing voters,” he said.

“Also in remote communities across the NT, a partnership with the Department of Human Services that has an [election] service centre located in a number of remote NT communities, has proved effective in assisting indigenous people to get on the role and be ready to vote when mobile polling commences.”

In Tasmania, about 85% of young people are enrolled, a much lower rate than the 94% of all eligible Tasmanians. In that state the AEC estimates that about 21,500 people are still missing, even after the more than 10,000 additions and updates made in this last week.

Around 27,000 people in both New South Wales and Victoria have enrolled since last Monday. Victoria estimates it is still missing around a quarter of a million people from its electoral roll.

Several enrolment campaigns tried to encourage first time voters to get enrolled – Triple J radio relaunched its Rock Enrol campaign, hitting up Splendour in the Grass at Byron Bay. The AEC used Facebook to get the message out with its “Youth Votes Matter” page. Virgin Voters has targeted 840,000 first time voters to get them involved in democracy.

Both enrolling to vote and voting are compulsory in Australia, but in practice people are rarely fined for not enrolling, and the issuing of fines for not voting varies widely across the country.