Explainer: What happens when a member resigns?
6 June 2022 | Canberra, Australia | Feature
Members of the Legislative Assembly are elected to serve four-year terms. However, this isn’t a locked-in contract. MLAs can resign from the Assembly if they are unable or no longer want to serve the full four years. This creates a casual vacancy – an empty seat outside of an election period.
A casual vacancy is filled by a count back of the votes from the last election.
Why don't we have by-elections?
In most other Australian parliaments, empty seats outside of an election period are filled by holding a by-election. This is a small election for all voters in an electorate to choose someone to replace the resigning member. By-elections work best for parliaments with single member electorates.
Because the ACT voters elect five members for each electorate, by-elections don’t work when a single member resigns. Instead, we go back and recount the votes from the most recent election.
How does a count back work?
The process for electing a new MLA is set out in the Electoral Act 1992.
A new member is chosen by recounting the votes received by the resigning member at the most recent election. This recount will show which candidate was the next preferred by the people who originally voted her.
For a candidate to be considered for this seat, they must have stood in the same electorate at the previous election and tell Elections ACT that they would like to contest the vacancy.
If the vacancy can’t be filled by count back – for example, if no candidates want to contest the vacancy – the Legislative Assembly will choose a person to fill the vacancy.
You can find out more about on the how casual vacancies are filled in the ACT on the Elections ACT website.