If Australia has compulsory voting, why are over 628,000 people missing from the electoral roll?

A fourth, equally invisible group is the homeless. It's now well publicised that Australia has a rapidly burgeoning group of homeless. The last official count showed that Australia's homeless rate was above 100,000.

Many of these unregistered voters are older women who are homeless. They are not unregistered voters because they failed to enrol, but because they fell off the roll.

This group is a growing and pronounced group. Some women have become homeless due to domestic violence. Many of these women had to give up their working lives to plug gaping holes in government care arrangements. They look after elderly parents, disability carers and become teachers of special needs students. And once many of these women hit their 50s they are thrown on the Newstart scrap heap and become homeless.

Should it be called compulsory voting when there are so many people missing from the electoral roll?

The success of our representative democracy on the people electing politicians that represent their interests. If you aren't registered to vote and if you don't vote – you can expect politicians to ignore you.

Similarly, if you vote for politicians who don't represent your interests, you can also expect to be ignored. So typically politicians in this latter category play voters for fools, by finger pointing at their opponents to keep supporters on side – while completely ignoring their needs. While many voters say they detest these tactics – some voters are readily swayed.

In response, cynics may say: Well we all know politicians are out for themselves – don't we? What do you expect? While this may be true of some politicians, the essence of democracy rests on the foundations of representative democracy that is, politicians exist to shape the policy landscape to further the interests of the electors. If not, it's time for voters to start looking for alternatives.

The case for automatic voter registration

But while there are compelling reasons for adding poorly represented people to the electoral roll, the fact is when it comes to getting registered; sometimes life gets in the way. Amidst all the competing deadlines, the stresses and other life drama's – the fact is, unless people rank registering to vote as a priority, or can make it a priority, they will fall off the roll.

That's why we need a system of automatic updating. Because to be a proper representative democracy you not only need a large percentage of Australian's registered, you also must ensure poorly represented groups are also enrolled to vote.

While ever some voters (say younger voters) continue to be poorly represented relative to their older counterparts, for example, it is far less likely that they will be heard.