GetUp has another court victory

Australians will be able to enrol online in future elections after the activist
group GetUp won a landmark case in the Federal Court.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) was taken to court by GetUp, which
challenged electoral laws preventing voters from enrolling online.
On Friday, Justice Nye Perram found the test case of first-time voter Sophie Trevitt
was legal.
He ruled the 19-year-old should be placed on the electoral roll after she used
GetUp's website OzEnrol.com to register her enrolment.
"Today's decision vindicates the process of online enrolment," GetUp national
director Simon Sheikh said outside the court.
OzEnrol.com was launched by GetUp in July and allowed people to submit enrolment
forms online by forwarding their signatures electronically using a digital pen,
mouse or computer trackpad.
The forms were then faxed to the AEC.
But the AEC argued the digitally constructed signatures were not valid as they
breached the Commonwealth Electoral Act, introduced in 1918, which requires people
to fill in and sign a claim in order to enrol.
With 1.4 million eligible voters not registered, Mr Sheikh said the AEC needed to
accept online enrolments in all future elections.
"We know that we pay our taxes online, that we do our banking online and we should
be able to enrol to vote online," he said.
GetUp will now turn its attention to Victoria, where a state election is due in
November.
"The AEC's next moves are up to them. We'll be pushing the case for online voting
vigorously so that it can be in place in time for the Victorian state election," Mr
Sheikh said.
Ms Trevitt, who is studying law, said she was excited to be voting for the first
time and had been surprised to find out that enrolments weren't allowed to be made
online.
"You can use electronic signatures for a whole lot of other things including taxes
and other things that are sensitive information and very important," she said.
"It seems that that's a pretty big barrier to enrol to vote, which is one of our
democratic rights, so yeah, I was very surprised."
This is a second big win for GetUp in as many weeks after the High Court overturned
amendments introduced by the Howard government in 2006, which tightened the
electoral requirements for new and existing voters.
Instead of having seven days to enrol after the election writs are issued, new
voters - mostly those had just turned 18 - had only until 8pm on that day.
Those wanting to amend their details on the electoral roll were forced to get in
contact with the commission within three days, rather than the usual week.
The High Court decision meant nearly 100,000 mostly young Australians had won back
their right to vote in the upcoming federal election.