Skip to contentInformation for people with disabilityInformation on accessibility
Australian Electoral Commission
With just under two weeks until early voting begins for the federal election, the Australian Electoral Commission is well advanced in activating plans for services to voters throughout Western Australia.
*All services are an increase from the successful conduct of the 2022 federal election and 2023 referendum.
Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said it is reasonable that West Australians would like extra information about federal election services following issues raised during the recent state election.
“The Western Australian state election was run by the WA Electoral Commission, a different organisation to the AEC,” Mr Pope said.
“Accordingly, it’s not appropriate for representatives of the AEC to comment on the operations of the state election, other than to say we have reviewed reports supplied to us and carefully considered them alongside our usual planning processes, geographical overlays and other preparations.”
“While we will always stop short of guaranteeing that there will be no queues when electors turn out to vote, the AEC has put in a lot of work to minimise wait times. This includes investing in more polling places and more staff than the recent state election and the 2022 federal election.
“This work coincides with our direct recruitment of staff members, our forensic focus of voter flows over recent years and the tripling of electronic roll mark-off devices in use this election.
“We’re confident these measures will help ensure a good voting experience for the nearly two million West Australians registered to vote on or before 3 May,” Mr Pope said.
The temporary staff deployed for the 2025 federal election will be directly employed by the AEC. They undertake AEC training, and their roles are carried out in accordance with AEC policies and processes and supervised by AEC officers.
The AEC’s recruitment of staff into various positions is multi-faceted - it has to be given the scale. The AEC conducts the majority of its recruitment outreach directly. A large part is direct engagement with staff who have worked on previous electoral events. The AEC also communicates with different community groups and invests in advertising. People register their interest with the AEC, via an AEC system, which is then managed by permanent AEC staff.
The involvement of recruitment agencies in securing temporary staff is largely targeted to difficult recruitment areas and contingencies. In some instances, recruitment undertaken by the AEC directly for election surge roles then results in the utilisation of labour hire companies simply for the administrative management of staffing (including onboarding processes and payments). When at scale, and in tight timeframes, these services are highly valuable despite the recruitment and work all being directly managed by the AEC.
This approach is consistent with processes undertaken during the successful delivery of the 2022 federal election and 2023 referendum, as well as many other previous federal electoral events.
It would be inaccurate to categorise the AEC’s small investment in recruitment agencies for administrative support as outsourcing the management of polling booths.
Along with the number of polling places and the level of staff being used, the AEC has done a significant amount of work to reduce queues…to the extent that it is possible. Since 2017, the AEC has worked with queuing experts at Deakin University and used computer modelling to underpin resourcing levels for each polling place - including the number of staff, table loadings and venue setup.
We have organised better venue setups where possible in temporary venues, including the use of mini queues to aide flow. There will be triple the number of electronic certified lists (ECLs - laptops mark-off the roll) which also speeds up the voting process.
AEC TV video: AEC efforts to reduce wait times
Our data indicates that around three quarters of all Australians get in and out within fifteen minutes – and we think that’s pretty good given the task.
Whenever you have an in-person process to the scale of an election, where millions of people can effectively arrive wherever and whenever they choose, queues are somewhat inevitable.
The AEC is confident that isolated instances of queues, should they occur, can be addressed and will not be indicative of any broader problem.
The WAEC and the Australian Electoral Commission are entirely separate organisations. While the task is similar, state and federal elections are conducted based on different legislation, to slightly different requirements and utilising different processes.
The AEC runs federal elections, by-elections and referendums. Each state and territory has its own electoral management body that runs the relevant state or territory election and local government elections.
For the federal election, the AEC has taken steps to increase to the number of ballot paper allocations at all polling places.
The AEC monitors early voting patterns through real-time mark-off data from electronic certified lists (ECLs) of the electoral roll (‘mark-off’ devices at voting venues). This provides visibility at the divisional, state and national level. In addition, the ECLs at polling places can print ballot papers for the home division/s if stocks are running low.
We also have ‘Polling Place Liaison Officers’ who provide additional oversight of multiple polling places. One of their tasks being to ensure adequate ballot paper stock. These staff members can provide additional ballot paper stock to polling places if they are running low.
The firm assists with last minute placements of temporary staff, only if needed. This small, contingency contract is a small part of our large recruitment commitments in WA. PersolKelly also provides some training staff who are fully trained by AEC specialist training staff – these staff are only deployed in peak periods.
The AEC also contracts Randstad in Western Australia for another aspect of our recruitment requirements.
Anyone hired through a labour hire recruitment company is still performing their duties under AEC supervision, according to AEC processes and with AEC training. Labor hire arrangements are simply a means to get people into roles as one very small part of a very large recruitment task. This model has been successfully used by the AEC all around Australia in past electoral events.
Australia’s unparallelled access to voting services in a manual system, and with full preferential voting and strict electoral laws, means that it is impossible to count all the votes on election night. However, on election night we endeavour to count every vote cast on election day and every vote cast at an early voting centre. In addition, for the first time in a federal election, we will be counting a small number of postal votes for each division on election night as well.
Votes cast interstate, overseas and via post have to travel back to home divisions to be counted. Secure transport takes time and if a seat is close, it may take some time for a result to be known. It is often the case during the counting period that we have counted all votes that are in our possession and are simply waiting for receipt back of more votes to be counted.
The AEC endeavours to communicate effectively about the election process. We run major campaigns to educate voters about their voting options as well as maintaining a highly accessible media and social media presence.
The AEC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.