Young people and intentional informal voting in Australia

Abstract

Compared to most other advanced democracies, Australia experiences fairly high levels of both intentional and unintentional informal (or invalid) voting. Using survey data obtained predominantly from the Australian Election Study and aggregate-level data derived mainly from the Australian Census, we explore whether young people are more likely to cast intentional informal votes. We also reflect on why they might do so. We find that young people are strongly implicated in the rising intentional informal vote rate. We also find that their motivations are linked to the following factors: the young are less likely to be members of political parties, less interested in electoral politics and tend to value voting less than the average citizen. Young people also report higher than average levels of cynicism about politics and lower levels of satisfaction with Australian democracy.