Posted by Web Operations on April 2, 2015 in New records

Great news, we’re always trying to improve our collections and we’ve updated the Australian Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980! We’ve added 61,953 new images and 30,953,567 new records, so this collection now has 1,465,956 images and 100,540,723 records!

So, what’s in the update?
About 70% of the electoral rolls in this collection were previously transcribed. In this update, we’ve extracted records from OCR data for the remaining 30% of rolls. In addition, we’ve added images and records for select rolls that were previously missing from the collection:

  • Tasmania (all districts for 1958-1980)
  • New South Wales (select districts for 1968, 1972, and 1977)

Electoral rolls began being compiled for some areas of Australia in the 1840s. At that time only property owners were eligible to vote. In most of the colonies all men were granted voting rights by the 1850s. Half a century later, women were granted voting rights as well.

Click on the image to read more. Source: Australian Electoral Commission
Click on the image to read more. Source: Australian Electoral Commission

Non-British subjects were not allowed to vote until the 1940s. In 1962 the right to vote in federal elections was granted to Australian Aboriginal women who, together with Australian Aboriginal men, had been specifically excluded from the franchise in Australia by the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902. Individuals falling into these two categories are not presently included in this database before those years.

Arrangement of Records:
Within each state voters were organized into electoral districts and subdistricts according to where they lived. Electoral rolls were compiled according to these geographical divisions. The boundaries of districts and subdistricts could change throughout the years.

Click on the image to start searching today!
Click on the image to start searching today!

Why Use Electoral Rolls:
Electoral rolls are great to use as “census substitutes.” They’re useful when census records are either incomplete or non-existent, and are usually available in between census years. Because electoral rolls were published on a fairly consistent basis and are generally country-wide, they are useful for tracking individuals over time and place.

Click here to start searching today!

Information listed in electoral rolls usually includes:

  • Number
  • Name of voter
  • Gender
  • Address
  • Occupation
Click on the image to start searching today!
Click on the image to start searching today!

State and Years Presently Included:
This database currently includes electoral rolls for the following states and years. Those marked by asterisk have been transcribed. For all other years, the records were extracted using a new OCR indexing method. They were not transcribed. We encourage you to correct any errors you find in the data by going to the image and editing the name in the correction panel at the bottom of the page.

Australian Capital Territory: 1928*, 1929-31, 1935*, 1937*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980*
New South Wales: 1930*, 1931-32, 1933*, 1934-35, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1953-54*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980*
Northern Territory: 1922*, 1928, 1929*, 1930-31, 1934*, 1937*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980*
Queensland: 1903*, 1905*, 1906, 1908*, 1909-10, 1912, 1913*, 1914-17, 1919*, 1921*, 1922, 1925*, 1926, 1928-29, 1930*, 1931-32, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980*
Tasmania: 1914*, 1915-17, 1919*, 1921, 1922*, 1925, 1928*, 1929-31, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943-44*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958-1980
Victoria: 1856*, 1903*, 1905-06, 1908, 1909*, 1910, 1912-13, 1914*, 1915-18, 1919*, 1920-22, 1924*, 1925-28, 1931*, 1932-35, 1936-37*, 1942-43*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980*
Western Australia: 1903*, 1905, 1906*, 1909, 1910-11*, 1912-15, 1916*, 1917-22, 1925*, 1926, 1928-30, 1931*, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980*

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