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Our Centenary of Women’s Suffrage

Commonwealth of Australia: General Election, 16 December 1903

Electoral mechanics

According to the Electoral Act, the creation of the electoral rolls for Federal elections was to be the responsibility of the Commonwealth Electoral Officers in each State, with the assistance of ‘all officers in the service of the Commonwealth and all police statistical and electoral officers in the service of any State’. In practice, the collection agents were generally local police. 4

The Electoral Rolls at the 1903 election were the subject of much adverse comment when people came to vote and found that their names were not included. A post-election report noted that one disenfranchised woman, whose name was not on the official printed roll at the booth, was married to the policeman who collected the information for the rolls and had put her name down; in another incident the policeman, it was asserted, had ‘taken down my name and Mary Anne’s, and cracked jokes, and went away – and I’m not down and Mary Anne is!’ A lodging house keeper was disenfranchised because the number of her house was wrongly stated on the roll, but her lodgers, whose names were taken at the same time, could vote.

Several States had already introduced postal voting as a response to problems of distance. 5 Arrangements for postal voting in Federal elections identified three classes of elector:- anyone having reason to believe they would be more than five miles from their polling place where they were enrolled, anyone who would be prevented by serious illness or infirmity from attending the polling place, and anyone ‘who being a woman believes that she will on account of ill-health be unable on polling day to attend the polling place to vote’.

Evidence given at the 1904 enquiry into administration of the Electoral Act indicates that, although not stated overtly, such female ill-health was equated with ‘being enceinte’, that is, pregnant. 6 It was also suggested that this provision might have been rorted.

For Federal elections the South Australia voting system was adopted – the box opposite the chosen candidate’s name was to be marked with a cross. In all other State systems the names of those candidates not wanted were to be struck out. 7 After the election The Age noted that ‘the new fangled fashion of marking the cross did not appeal to many Victorian electors who, in the old days, positively enjoyed wreaking their displeasure on the men for whom they were not voting by savagely running the blue pencil through their names.’

It should also be noted that neither enrolment nor voting was compulsory at this time.

Turning out to vote

On 26 February 1904, George Lewis, Chief Electoral Officer for the Commonwealth, presented to the Parliament the returns for each of the House of Representatives divisions, and the Senate returns by each division within a State. These statistics showed names of candidates and votes polled by each; number of informal votes; total number of electors (male and female) who recorded their votes, and number of electors enrolled (male and female) for each division. 8

The House of Representatives

There were more women than men enrolled in 22 electorates throughout the country, with 11 of these in Victoria. More women than men voted in five electorates (although one difference was very small). In general the turn-out rate (the percentage of those enrolled who recorded a vote) for women was lower than for men; in all States the highest rate for women was at least ten percentage points lower than the highest for men. In only three electorates was the turn-out rate for women higher than for men, and in eleven the rate for women was at least 20 percentage points lower.

Because the federal voting procedure was generally different from those used in most State elections, there had been some concern that there would be many informal votes cast. Averaged across the contested electorates in each State, informal votes, as a proportion of all votes recorded, were highest in Western Australia at 5.2%. Tasmania recorded 3.0%, New South Wales 2.8%, South Australia and Queensland 2.7%, and Victoria 1.9%.

Voting in Western Australia – a special case

It has been argued that the franchise was given to women in Western Australia in order to maintain the level of conservative support in the city and along the coast, as against the radical leanings of the increasing numbers of men coming to the Goldfields. 9 In 1903, it is interesting to note, the highest number of women voting was recorded in the goldfields division of Kalgoorlie, 1494, as against 1416 in Perth and 1372 in Fremantle (candidates in the other two divisions were unopposed). The turn-out rates for women were 19.6%, 11.6% and 16.3% respectively.

The new members

In 1901 neither South Australia nor Tasmania had declared electoral divisions, so the elections for the House of Representatives had been held on a state-wide basis. In 1903 incumbent members were elected unopposed in five of the new electorates in South Australia. In Boothby two sitting members contested the election, and in Hindmarsh two new candidates were nominated – they had not stood in 1901. In Tasmania all five electorates were contested. Three of the successful candidates had been elected state-wide in 1901; there were two new members, one of whom defeated a sitting member.

In New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, there were 63 House of Representatives electorates. In 12 of these seats the member was elected unopposed. All of these unopposed nominations were sitting members. In 37 seats the sitting member stood and was returned; in 6 seats the sitting member stood again and was defeated; in the remaining eight seats the sitting member did not stand again.

Thus the new House of Representatives had 58 members (77% of the total 75) who sat in the previous parliament.

After the election there were four petitions to the Court of Disputed Returns gazetted. Two were successful – in one the re-elected sitting member was replaced by his opponent (in both 1901 and 1903), in the other the ex-member was reinstated.

The Senate

The 1903 election was for half the Senate only, to replace the three Senators from each State who had had half terms of three years (as laid down in the Constitution). In Victoria there were four places to be filled; one elected Senator had died and been replaced by nomination of the State government, and a successor to this vacancy had to be elected to complete the term. Thus a total of 19 Senate places were up for election.

There were 63 candidates in the various States. In Victoria and Tasmania all three of the half-term senators nominated (the nominated replacement senator in Victoria did not stand). In New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia two nominated; in Western Australia one nominated, and also a replacement Senator nominated by the State government to fill a short term vacancy.

In Victoria two were elected, one came 13th out of 18; in Tasmania two were elected, one came fourth. In New South Wales both were elected; in Queensland one was re-elected, one came last; in South Australia one was re-elected, one came fourth; and in Western Australia the half-term Senator was re-elected, and the replacement Senator came fourth. Thus, nine of the thirteen were re-elected, and nearly half of the new Senators had already had experience in the Federal Parliament.

The overall turn-out rate for the Senate elections varied across the States, ranging from 28% in Western Australia to 55% in Queensland. Queensland also had the highest rate for men (62%) and the second highest for women (45%).

Turn-out rates (%) for Senate election, December 1903

Female Male Overall
New South Wales 41 53 47
Queensland 45 62 55
South Australia 23 42 33
Tasmania 34 55 45
Victoria 46 57 51
Western Australia 15 36 28

Electoral participation in South Australia – 1901 and 1903

In South Australia both women and men had voted in the 1901 Federal election. The House of Representatives ordered a return, showing the number of men and women who were enrolled and the number who actually recorded their votes. The return was tabled and printed. This shows that, at the 1901 election, the turn-out rates for women and men were 31% and 49% respectively.

In 1903 the number of women enrolled on the Federal Rolls in the State had increased by 18%, compared with the State Rolls in 1901. The increase for men was 2%. In the 1903 Senate election, the turn-outs were 23% and 42% for women and men respectively. The actual numbers recording votes were lower in 1903 than 1901. Since voting was not compulsory, some voters in the five uncontested seats in the House of Representatives may have decided not to bother with the elections at all.

  1. Bourke, P 2002, ‘The Australian electorate ca.1894-1930: issues and data’, in M Simms (ed), A Hundred Years of Women’s Politics, Occasional paper series1/2002, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Canberra, p. 89.
  2. Simms, M, op. cit., p. 32.
  3. Bourke, P 2002, ‘The Australian electorate ca.1894-1930: issues and data’, in M Simms (ed), A Hundred Years of Women’s Politics, p. 90.
  4. Rydon, J 2001, ‘Electoral Methods’, in M Simms (ed), 1901: The forgotten election, p. 22.
  5. Australia is one of the ‘few countries in the modern democratic world which counted separately the total of women enrolling to vote and then recorded separately the numbers of women and men voting in general elections’. See P Bourke, ‘The Australian electorate ca.1894-1930: issues and data’, in M Simms (ed), A Hundred Years of Women’s Politics, p. 83.
  6. Oldfield, A 1992, Woman Suffrage in Australia: a gift or a struggle?, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, pp. 53-55.

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