Roughly half a million Australians are likely to miss out on voting at the federal election in May.
The Australian Electoral Commission estimates that's how many people will have failed to get on the electoral roll by Monday night's 8pm cut-off.
Ella Beard, 18, will not be one of them.
She's been highly engaged in politics for years, including organising a climate strike and now working in the office of independent Victorian MP Ali Cupper in Mildura.
But she said some people in her age group don't know how to enrol or don't know the deadline is approaching.
"I don't think too many people my age necessarily feel excitement to vote and the enrolling process," she said.
"It is something that I have spoken to friends and peers about ... the federal election's right around the corner and we have a [Victorian] election in November, so it's really important that we get those enrolments in.
Direct enrolments
So why can't the Australian Electoral Commission just sign everyone up on (or before) their 18th birthday?
According to spokesperson Evan Eakin-Smith, the AEC does directly enrol people where it can, but often it's not possible to be sure of a person's circumstances.
"The sort of data sources that we use are the ATO [Australian Tax Office], motor registries and Centrelink," he said.
"But it's not a catch-all.
"The responsibility is still on the individual to enrol and where we can't be sure of something, including a person's residential address, we can't directly enrol them."
Mr Eakin-Smith said it's often difficult to be sure where a young person who is eligible to vote but yet to enrol lives, especially if they've recently moved out of home.
"You can't just enrol someone generically for Australia, you've got to enrol them at a particular address.
"We can't enrol somebody if we're not absolutely sure of their circumstances."
Mr Eakin-Smith said young people have an enrolment rate of 85 per cent, compared with the general population's 97 per cent.
He said there is also a disproportionately low enrolment rate of 80 per cent among Indigenous Australians.
Mr Eakin-Smith said the AEC has sent emails and text messages to about 600,000 Australians it believes may be eligible to enrol for the federal election.
"We remind people where we can," he said.
The electoral roll closed at 8pm on Monday April 18.
Voters go to the polls on May 21.
