Each time an election comes around there’s a pretty good chance you’ll hear at least one person express that they don’t think their vote really matters. It’s not hard to feel disenfranchised by parties and government, particularly as a young person but your vote has the power to elect someone who you believe will represent you better.
Let’s look at the marginal seats going into the 2022 State Election as an example.
There were six marginal seats heading into the state election. These are seats that were won in the 2018 election by a small percentage of votes, often less votes than there are eligible non-voting young people in that electorate.
In the 2018 election the electorate of Newland, previously a Labor party seat, was won by Liberal Richard Harvey by only 27 votes, or 0.1% of the votes in that electorate. But Newland had an estimated 501 non-voting 18-24 year olds, more than enough votes to decide which way that seat could go.
Below are the six marginal electorates, the margin and the estimated number of non-voting 18-24 year olds in that electorate - in table and Tik Tok form:
