Electoral Act Provisions Invalid: Rowe v Electoral Commissioner

This post could be called “Electoral Act Provisions Invalid: I was wrong”. This morning I predicted that the restrictions on the enrolment to vote presented by the Howard era amendments to the Electoral Act would not be sufficient to invalidate the legislation as an unconstitutional limitation on the democratic process required by the Constitution.

Apparently, I was wrong. The High Court today found by majority that the legislative provisions are invalid (reserving their reasons). This means that the reasons, when they are published, will be far more interesting than I expected. This is because, whereas in Roach v Electoral Commissioner the Court considered the extent to which Parliament may prevent people from voting, this decision will need to articulate more precisely the extent to which Parliament may make it difficult for a person to vote. It will have to be a very interesting decision.

(Hopefully this is not the beginning of a “(colon) I was wrong” string of posts.)