As many as 40,000 adults across the Northern Territory are not enrolled to vote, the Northern Land Council claims, as it condemns the "failure" of the Australian Electoral Commission to ensure Aboriginal community residents are on the electoral roll.

The NLC claimed the AEC has refused to implement direct or automatic enrolment in Territory communities, a strategy used elsewhere to enrol voters using datasets such as Centrelink, the Australian Tax Office and motor vehicle registries.

NLC chairman Samuel Bush-Blanasi said the failure was a systemic problem.

"At the 2018 Federal election about half of the NT's Aboriginal population wasn't enrolled to vote," he said.

"This situation is totally unacceptable and needs to be fixed.

"I feel heartsick about this whole business that has been going on for far too long."

Federal Special Minister of State Ben Morton said $9.4 million had been committed to support engagement of First Nations people in elections last October.

"(The funding) will be managed by the Australian Electoral Commission in partnership with local Indigenous organisations and Indigenous communities," he said.

"The funding will enable targeted in-community engagement activities, grow electoral awareness, increase Indigenous communication products, and provide additional flexibility for electoral roll systems to better capture and link traditional, kinship and other recognised names.

"These measures compliment the Government's commitment of $5.6 million in 2020-21 MYEFO to expand the AEC's presence in the Northern Territory and enhance electoral enrolment and participation, particularly for Indigenous Australians in the NT."

In 2021 two senior men from Arnhem Land lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission about what they identified as the AEC's failure to provide proper enrolment services to Aboriginal Territorians. That complaint is still before the Commission.