More than 20% of young Victorians are not enrolled to vote at this month’s state election.

The figures are revealed in the Victorian Electoral Commission’s 2009-10 annual report, which shows youth enrolment has been in steady decline since 2006 and that the VEC has failed to meet its target for achieving youth enrolments.

However, Victoria is testing a new system this year, whereby all voters can cast a provisional vote regardless of whether they are registered on the electoral roll.

A spokeswoman for the VEC, Sue Lang, told Crikey that the new system is “great because it means voters won’t be disenfranchised as they would have been before August, when the changes were introduced”.

About 60,000 people were turned away at the 2006 state election.  But when Victorians vote on November 27, anyone with identification can turn up and cast a provisional vote. The details will be verified the following week and then included in the statewide tally.

This will increase voting rates for young people especially, because people younger than 35 tend to move house more often and place a lower priority on registering to vote.

The low level of youth enrolments makes up a large portion of the estimated 325,000 people who are not enrolled to vote in Victoria.

The current proportion of Victorians who are eligible to vote and actually enrolled is just below 91%, a figure that has steadily fallen from 94.5% in 2004.

The number of young Victorians who are enrolled is about 10% less than the general state population.

However, the report also states that “Victoria continues to have one of the highest youth enrolment rates in Australia”. Nevertheless, the steady decline has meant the VEC has failed to meet its own target of a youth enrolment rate that is “at least two percentage points above the national average”.

Lang said disengagement with the formal political process by people aged 18-25 “should not be confused with apathy”, based on the findings of a nation-wide youth electoral study. “They’re very motivated and they’re very committed; they volunteer, they demonstrate, they sign petitions, join campaigns, but they have a feeling they are not being heard by politicians and by the media.”

The study, undertaken by the National University of Canberra and the Australian Electoral Commission, also found young people have a lack of knowledge and tend not to access information about the political process and how democracy works.

“That has to come back to the education system to a certain extent, to the education and awareness programs that electoral commissions run, and to engagement programs that political parties and members of parliament run,” said Lang.

The VEC’s secondary school Passport to Democracy program found that one in every two students from year 10 onwards did not feel they were prepared to participate or that they understood voting.

In August, the state Government changed a law allowing the VEC to automatically include people on the electoral role when they turn 18. This must be verified by other sources such as VicRoads and the Rental Tenancies Bond Authority. In the upcoming state election, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority will begin notifying the VEC of students who have turned 18 in the past 12 months or  are about to turn 18, allowing the VEC to add them to the roll after a letter of acceptance.