Queensland Voting Records
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Online Resources
- 1842-1864 New South Wales, Australia Historical Electoral Rolls, 1842-1864 at Ancestry, index, browse, and images($). Includes Queensland until 1859.
- 1893-1949 Australia Electoral Rolls, 1893-1949 at MyHeritage($), index
- 1903-1980 Australia, Including Queensland, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 at Ancestry, Index ($)
- 1906-1969 Queensland, Australia, Commonwealth Electoral Rolls, 1906-1969 at Ancestry - index ($)
- Queensland Electoral Rolls at Findmypast Index ($)
- 1959 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1959 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1949 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1949 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1941 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1941 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1934 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1934 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1922 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1922 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1915 Queensland State Electoral Roll 1915 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1913 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1913 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1910 Queensland State Electoral Roll 1910 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1905 Queensland State Electoral Roll 1905 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1903 Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1903 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
- 1900 Queensland State Electoral Roll 1900 at MyHeritage, Index ($)
Information in the Electoral Rolls
Voting registers, or electoral rolls, are a census of those who were eligible to vote. They are valuable because a country-wide census wasn't taken until 1911. Early electoral rolls give an individual’s name, residence, status of property occupation/ownership, and the nature of the rateable property.
Voting rights were tied to property ownership; therefore, all men were not eligible to vote in the early years. Full adult male suffrage was not granted in most colonies until the 1850s and later. Women’s suffrage was not granted in the states until around 1900. Non-British subjects, unless naturalized, were not granted suffrage until the 1940s. Aboriginal suffrage was not granted until 1949.
There are two kinds of electoral roll for Queensland:
- State electoral rolls, maintained by the Queensland Government
- Commonwealth electoral rolls, maintained by the Federal Government
In recent years, the Queensland Government stopped maintaining its own electoral rolls and handed responsibility over to the Australian Electoral Commission, who manage the Commonwealth electoral rolls. So now there is only one set of electoral rolls in contemporary Queensland.
The information available in the electoral roll is typically:
- surname
- given names
- address
- occupation
- sex
Note that recently occupation and sex have been dropped from the electoral roll, so early rolls are more informative than later rolls.
Until recently (1990?) the electoral roll was organised by:
- electorate
- subdivision
- surname
- given names
This means that to find someone in the electoral roll, it helps a lot if you already know the electorate and sub-division. So if you have no clue where in Queensland the person was living, the process is a very tedious one of checking every electorate and every subdivision within the electorate. In this situation, it may be easier to use an index if one exists for that period.
More recently, the electoral rolls have been organised by:
- state
- surname
- given names
which makes finding a person very easy by comparison. So later rolls are easier to use, but have less information.
Inspecting the Queensland Electoral Rolls
Places where you can view the historical electoral rolls for Queensland include:
- Queensland Government State Archives on microfilm
- National Archives of Australia on microfilm
Some genealogical societies hold partial collections of the historical electoral rolls:
The current electoral roll can be viewed at:
- some offices of the Australian Electoral Commission on microfiche
- state libraries, including Queensland State Library, on microfiche