Following the 2016 general election, the AEC undertook an Informal Ballot Paper Study to analyse the levels and types of informal voting. The national informality rate (informal votes as a percentage of all votes cast) decreased from 5.91 per cent of all votes cast in 2013 to 5.05 per cent in 2016.

Turnout at the 2016 House of Representatives elections (91.0 per cent) was the lowest recorded since the introduction of compulsory voting ahead of the 1925 federal election, finds this analysis. Turnout at the 2016 Senate elections (91.9 per cent) was the lowest recorded since the 1925 federal election.

Sally Young looks at the rise in the level of informal votes cast in the 2004 federal election, which highlights the need for funding to be restored to the Australian Electoral Commission so that it can conduct adequate community education programs, particularly in electorates with large numbers of Australians from non-English speaking countries. Such a...