Electoral Act 1992

The commissioner may approve 1 or more computer programs for any of the following:

to allow electronic voting in an election;

to perform steps in the scrutiny of votes in an election.

The commissioner may approve a program under subsection (1) (a) only if the program will—

allow an elector to show consecutive preferences starting at ‘1’; and

give an elector an opportunity to correct any mistakes before processing the elector’s vote; and

allow an elector to make an informal vote showing no preference for any candidate; and

not allow a person to find out how a particular elector cast their vote.

The commissioner may approve a program under subsection (1) (b) only if—

the proper use of the program would give the same result in the scrutiny of votes in an election as would be obtained if the scrutiny were conducted without using the program; and

the program—

will not allow a person to find out how a particular elector cast their vote; and

is designed to pause while the commissioner makes a determination by lot required by schedule 4; and

can produce indicative distributions of preferences at any time after the close of the poll and before the declaration of the poll.

An approval under subsection (1) is a notifiable instrument.

The commissioner must determine processes that must be followed in relation to the use of an approved computer program in the scrutiny of votes in an election.

Without limiting subsection (5), the commissioner may approve a process—

for entering preferences shown on paper ballots into the approved computer program; and

for counting preferences using the program to work out—

the number of unrejected ballot papers on which a first preference is recorded for each candidate; and

the number of informal ballot papers for each electorate.