Electoral Commission could 'strengthen' vote counting after 2023 mishaps

Tuesday, 7 May 2024

The Electoral Commission’s vote counting systems could be strengthened, the auditor-general says, after misplaced ballots and data entry errors prompted an amendment to the official 2023 election results.

While the mistakes in vote counting did not affect the election result, Auditor-General John Ryan agreed to review the commission’s processes. His 64-page report was published on Tuesday afternoon, and the Electoral Commission has promised to fully implement the findings.

Ryan said the mistakes were due to the commission’s quality assurance processes being ineffective and improperly completed, an unexpected number of people enrolling to vote in the two weeks before the election, more special votes being cast than anticipated, and due to a focus on external and not internal risks.

He recommended the commission review all its vote counting and quality assurance processes to find gaps and vulnerabilities, update its operations manuals, review the recruiting and training of election workers, review the technology available to staff, review the IT systems used, and improve its risk management processes.

“The manual processes are vulnerable to mistakes that can occur when those processes, and the people doing them, are put under pressure. This is what happened,” Ryan said in the report.

“Mistakes happened because some ballots were misplaced, which led to incorrect counting, and because some people made data entry errors or did not do the checks that were required. In one instance, a ballot box was not counted during the official count.

“Although there was a relatively small number of errors, which did not affect the overall outcome, small errors can make a difference.”

The report showed that, while voter turnout was lower than in 2020, at 78%, the number of voters registered in the two weeks before the election was 454,000 - more than expected. As was the number of special votes cast, at 602,000, which was 100,000 more than in 2020.

The malfunction of a IT system that allowed election workers to look up voters failed twice on election day, meaning paper-based systems had to be used and a higher number of people were asked to cast special votes. This put “further pressure” on the vote counting process.

A list of other errors included entering votes to the incorrect candidates and parties, entering election day votes also as advance votes, and entering one more special vote for candidates than was entered for party votes.

In total, the November 9 correction to the official election result increased the party vote by 693 votes, and candidate votes by 708. Much of the missed votes came from the ballot box of 620 votes that were not counted.

The report also said election staff were working long hours, some between 12 to 14 hours, seven days a week. One electorate manager said they had worked 17 hours by the time they carried out quality assurance checks and others had been working 70-hour weeks for three months.

“Tired people are more likely to make mistakes.”

Electoral Commission chief electoral officer Karl Le Quesne said, in a statement, the errors were deeply regretted.

“Our priority is improving the systems and controls we have in place and continuing to deliver elections with integrity,” he said.

The recommendations would be fully implemented, he said, and already under way was an internal review of the election, the adoption of a new assurance framework, audits of post-election and enrolment to identify gaps, and a review of operating manuals and training.