Using art to encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voter enrolment

1980s Torres Strait Island "Enrol to Vote" poster, by Indigenous designer Marie McMahon.

A classic poster series encouraging Indigenous Australians to participate in the electoral process has been reproduced by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

The series is being distributed in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the Indigenous right to vote in 2012.

The posters were designed specifically for, and in consultation with, remote communities in the late 1980s. These same communities have been behind the push to have them reproduced.

While Indigenous Australians achieved legal equality in electoral participation in 1962, in practice they remain disadvantaged: they are significantly less likely to enrol to vote, less likely to vote, and more likely to vote informally than non-Indigenous Australians.

An AEC priority is to close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage in electoral participation, and it has established the Indigenous Electoral Participation Program to achieve this goal.

• Read the Australian Electoral Commission’s media release.
• View the three posters currently being distributed by  Indigenous Electoral Participation Program field officers.