Australian Electoral Law

This course explores topics related to elections in Australia, including referenda and the law relating to political parties as essential participants in the electoral process but not including local government and non-governmental elections. The law relating to elections is constitutional law in action and contains numerous important principles and practices of both scholarly and practical importance. In broad outline, a chronological approach to the electoral process will be adopted, starting with a historical survey and a consideration of the legal nature and roles of political parties. The course will then move on to methods of voting and electoral boundaries to the electoral machinery and the election itself and conclude with mechanisms for challenging electoral outcomes and constitutional referenda. The general purposes of elections will also be covered with a scene-setting topic on democratic theory, and every topic will include a critical component. Topics may include : 1. History of elections (the common law of elections; the extension of the franchise in the nineteenth century; the introduction of compulsory voting); 2. Democratic theory : nature and purpose of elections; 3. Legal nature of political parties and their status, powers and regulation; 4. Donations to political parties and public funding of them; 5. Methods of voting (proportional representation, first-past-the-post, run-off system etc.; e-voting); 6. The drawing of electoral boundaries : processes and significance; 7. The franchise and federal and State constitutional provisions relating to it; 8. Compulsory voting - for and against; 9. The electoral machinery: writs, dates and dissolutions; 10. Formal and informal votes; 11. The filling of casual vacancies through by-elections and other methods; 12. Regulation of election advertising and campaigns; 13. Grounds for challenge of results, Courts of disputed returns and other methods of challenging election results; 14. The federal Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and other policy review mechanisms constitutional referenda, federal and State.