Whilst property votes are normally regarded as a relic dating back to an age before mass democracy, they persist in local government elections in much of Australia writes Marian Sawer. Their continued existence is an affront to most modern conceptions of democracy.

Australia often prides itself on being a pioneering democracy—noted for inventions such as the ‘Australian ballot’ that took the violence out of elections and made the polling booth a safe place for women. You might assume therefore that property votes would be a thing of the past, safely consigned to the rubbish bin of history, along with the exclusion of women, the recipients of charity and Indigenous Australians from the franchise. In fact property votes are still flourishing everywhere in Australia except in Queensland and the Territories. How can this be? Did the continuance of property votes at the local government level just get overlooked?