MEDIA RELEASE
31 May 2011	Embargo: 11.30 am (Canberra time)	66/2011

In the 2010 federal election, South Australian voter turnout was the third highest behind Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

In 2010, South Australia's voter turnout levels were 93.8% for the House of Representatives and 94.3% for the Senate. The highest voter turnout was in Tasmania with 95.1% for the House of Representatives and 95.3% for the Senate.

However, voter turnout in South Australia for the 2010 election was lower than the four previous federal elections, in both houses of parliament. The highest voter turnout over the last four federal elections was in 2001 where voter turnout levels were 95.6% for the House of Representatives and 96.0% for the Senate.

Looking at specific SA Commonwealth Electoral Divisions (CED), in 2010, the CED of Boothby recorded the lowest voter turnout level (91.5%) and also experienced the largest drop in turnout (- 4.2%) of all SA CEDs since the previous 2007 election. Conversely, the CED of Barker recorded the highest voter turnout level in 2010 at 95.1%.

In terms of informal votes for the 2010 election of the House of Representatives, South Australia shared the third highest (5.5%) level of informal votes along side Queensland, and behind New South Wales (6.8%) and the Northern Territory (6.2%). The lowest level of informal votes was recorded by Tasmania (4.0%).

In 2010, the CED of Port Adelaide recorded South Australia's highest proportion of informal votes with 7.2%. Conversely, the CED of Mayo registered the lowest level of informal votes in both 2010 and 2007, at 4.6% and 2.8% respectively.

The full article on Trends in Federal Voter Turnout and Informal Voting in South Australia can be found in the May edition of SA Stats (cat. no. 1345.4).

Media note:

• When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.