Federal Election Dates Since 1901

Elections for the House of Representatives have been held on forty-seven occasions on the dates shown below.

Every election since 1913 has been held on a Saturday, following an amendment to the electoral legislation by the Fisher Labor government. The 1901 election was held over two days, Friday and Saturday. The 1903, 1906 and 1910 elections were held on a Wednesday.

House of Representatives elections are usually held in conjunction with a half-Senate election. Just four stand-alone half-Senate elections have been held, all since 1949. They were on May 9, 1953; December 5, 1964; November 25, 1967; and November 21, 1970. A half-Senate election in Western Australia was held on April 5, 2014, following the invalidation of the election of September 7, 2013.

• Election Campaign Lengths – Announcement & Polling Dates Since 1966
• Federal and State Election Dates Since 1901

 

The table below shows the number of elections held in each month.

Of the 47 general elections, 34 (72%) were held in the second half of the year, and 25 (53%) were held in October-December.

December is the single most popular month for elections with 12 (26%).

Elections in the first half of the year have been held on 13 occasions (28%). Of these, 5 were held in March, 2 in April, and 6 in May.

The two elections held in July were both double dissolutions.

No election has ever been held in January, February or June.

Three elections have been held on December 10, the most for any single day. Two elections have been held on each of May 18, August 21, December 13 and December 16.

 

The table below shows the number of elections in descending order of popularity by month.