Integrity assurance measures
The ACT community has high levels of confidence in the integrity of our elections. The Commission is determined this continues into the 2024 ACT election and beyond by delivering a trusted, transparent, secure and accessible election.
We implement measures and processes to ensure a trusted and secure electoral outcome.
Registering to vote
Registering to vote ensures the electoral roll only includes eligible voters. The community can have confidence that only those legally entitled to vote participate in elections. Our robust enrolment system safeguards our elections. This validates voter confidence and participation in our democracy.
Ballot paper security
Ballot paper security and integrity is integral to a trusted electoral outcome. The Commission takes ballot paper security very seriously.
All activities involving ballot papers support and reinforce electoral integrity.
From the moment they’re printed all ballot papers are considered ‘live’. We preserve their security and integrity until they’re destroyed. A statutory authorisation allows destruction 4 years after the election and before the next ACT election period begins.
Polling place ballot paper management
The Commission allocates an exact number of ballot papers to the Officer in Charge (OIC). The number is for the expected numbers of voters at a polling location. This number is recorded in the Commission’s polling place management system (PPMS).
The OIC counts the number of ballot papers received and records the number in the PPMS. Discrepancies are reported to the Commission through the PPMS.
When an elector receives their ballot paper, the transaction is recorded in the PPMS. The number of blank ballot papers in the OIC’s possession automatically reduces in the PPMS.
Then, after polls close, the polling place staff count the completed ballot papers in the ballot box. The PPMS reconciles the number of counted papers with the number of unused blank ballot papers remaining. This ensures all ballot papers are accounted for.
Ballot paper authenticity
The ACT uses specialised printing equipment and materials to produce ballot papers with security and anti-counterfeit features. Chain-of-custody protocols track ballot paper movement from printing facilities to polling locations.
The PPMS monitors ballot paper distribution and returns and highlights any potential irregularities for review.
Early voting
Early voting is open for 2 weeks prior to election day.
Each early voting centre has a separate ballot box for each day of the early voting period. At the end of each day of voting, the daily ballot box is sealed with a tamper-proof unique seal.
Commission staff collect the ballot box and transport it back to the Commission’s main office. At this location they’re securely stored and monitored before the formal counting process begins.
Ballot paper transport
At the end of election night, officials at polling locations place all ballot papers - completed and unused - in a ballot paper transport container (BPTC).
They seal the BPTC with 2 unique tamper-proof seals. The OIC transports the BPTCs to a material drop-off point.
At these locations, Commission staff collect polling place materials, including BPTCs, from the surrounding polling locations. They deliver them to the Commission’s main office.
The secure ballot paper storage rooms are strictly access controlled and monitored at all times before and during the final counting process.
Scrutineers
Scrutineers, appointed by political parties or candidates, play a crucial role in ensuring transparency and integrity during ballot counting.
They observe the counting process to verify accuracy and challenge any potential errors or irregularities. Their presence helps maintain confidence in the electoral process and ensures the outcome reflects voters' intentions.
Preventing multiple voting
The Commission uses the PPMS to search and mark each voter off the electoral roll.
The PPMS in each polling location is linked to all other PPMSs across the ACT. When a voter is marked off in one location, they're marked off as having voted on all ACT elector lists.
If a voter attempts to vote more than once, their name will already be marked off.
If this happens, officials will tell the voter they appear to have already voted in the election. If the voter claims they haven’t voted yet, officials will offer them a ‘declaration vote’.
Declaration votes
Officials assess all declaration votes against electoral records. If there’s an indication the elector has voted more than once, officials reject the declaration vote and don’t include it in the final count.
Multiple voting is a serious offence and can attract a significant financial penalty and imprisonment for 6 months.
Electronic voting security
The Electronic voting and counting system has security protections in both the system and deployment process. This provides significant assurance that votes are accurately stored and counted.
Key components of the system are physically access controlled and air-gapped from other components including the internet. This significantly protects the system from malicious attacks.
The electronic voting system is not connected to the internet in any way.
The system is on an isolated Local Area Network (LAN). The voting terminals don’t store vote data. No voter information is ever stored on the electronic voting system. Votes can’t be linked to the voter who lodged it.
The votes are encrypted and stored in a shuffled order on multiple hard drives on the polling place server. This ensures votes can’t be lost through a hardware failure or linked to an elector.
Before an ACT election we have the system independently audited, certified and locked down. This ensures the software only does what it is intended and certified to do. Votes can’t be fraudulently added, deleted or amended.
Access to key management components is secured by multi-factor authentication. Other integrity measures, including hash values and digital coding signatures, prevent vote data manipulation.
Source code auditing and certification
The Commission engaged an independent source code auditor. The auditor conducted a full source code review of the electronic voting and counting systems software, ‘eVACS’.
The audit sought to verify the code's integrity and adherence to the Electoral Act 1992 (the Act).
The auditor verified the electronic voting and counting system accords with the Act. It certified the software is free of any malicious or unintentional code that could alter the election outcome.
As an added integrity and transparency measure, the Commission invites public review of the source code. We publish the code on this website.
View the certificate.
Read about eVACS.
Ballot paper scanning accuracy
Ballot paper scanning involves a 3-stage verification process. This ensures each ballot paper is correctly interpreted.
Scanning uses intelligent character recognition (ICR) software. The software identifies preferences marked on every formal paper ballot.
The ICR software interprets voters’ hand-written preferences. The ballot paper scanning system uses a range of strategies to ensure a high degree of accuracy.
The Commission engaged an independent source code auditor to review of the code for ballot paper scanning. The audit sought to verify the code's integrity by certifying the software is free from any malicious or unintentional code that could alter the election outcome.
View the certificate.
Read about ballot paper scanning.
Ballot paper scanning assurance audit
In 2008 we introduced ballot paper scanning which included internally conducted audits of the system's accuracy after every election.
Elections ACT staff conducted audits after the declaration of the election result. Recent audits didn't identify any errors.
In 2024, as an additional transparency and integrity measure, the Commission is engaging an independent third-party auditing company. They will conduct a ballot paper scanning assurance audit.
The audit will happen live, during the final election scrutiny process, the week following election day.
Ballot papers will be randomly selected for review by the third-party auditing company. Once the papers have been selected, the auditors will be able to compare the digitally captured image of the ballot paper and the digitally determined ballot paper preferences against the original physical ballot paper to ensure that the digitally determined preferences have been accurately recorded.
This process will determine a possible error rate that can be used to ascertain whether the election result was altered by scanning interpretation errors.
Read about ballot paper scanning assurance methodology.
View the Ballot paper scanning assurance audit report
View the ABS statistical analysis of outcome of the ballot paper scanning assurance audit
Read the Statement by the ACT Electoral Commissioner - Outcome of ballot paper scanning assurance audit
Cyber-security measures
The Electoral Commission takes cyber-security very seriously.
Working with federal and ACT cyber agencies, we analyse and test the security of each of the Commission’s ICT electoral systems. This includes load and penetration testing. This testing prevents malicious attacks on system and data availability, integrity and confidentiality.
Between elections, the Commission engages expert cyber analysts to assess its systems and processes. They assess them against the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight cyber maturity model. The Commission continually strives to increase its maturity.
We implement and test cyber protection strategies before every election. Strategies include:
- encryption
- multi-factor authentication
- physical and software access controls
- application and operating system patching, whitelisting and restricted administrative privileges
- regular back-ups
- incident response and disaster recovery plan