In the upcoming federal election in 2022, will online voting be an option?

Our jobs, shopping, and other routine activities all moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

You might be wondering if you can vote online in Australia's first federal election since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Can I cast my federal election ballot online?

Let's get right to the point: you cannot cast your ballot for the 2022 federal election online.

The use of a personal device to cast a ballot in a federal election in Australia has never been possible online.  

But that doesn't mean you can't cast your vote in any Australian election online.

Review the results of the 2022 Australian federal election.

In some local council elections in NSW, online voting was available.

Online voting is only permitted in one state of Australia, NSW, and it has only been used in a small number of elections.  

Since 2011, state elections have been conducted using the remote voting system iVote, and more recently, local elections.

The NSW Electoral Commission's platform enables eligible voters to cast their ballots over the phone or online.

Following a legal battle on behalf of voters with low vision and blindness, the eligibility criteria were expanded to include:

• Silent voters (those who don't want their addresses listed on the electoral roll because they fear for their safety)
• Individuals who reside more than 20 kilometers from a polling place
• Those going somewhere on election day
• Those with disabilities who are unable to visit a polling location

Additionally, the system saw increased use during elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NSW Supreme Court decided this month that three local government elections held in December 2021 were invalid because of an iVote error, proving that the system has flaws.

Numerous ballots in Singleton, Kempsey, and Shellharbour were invalid. ( News from ABC: Lauren Pezet )

34 iVote ballots in Kempsey, 55 in Singleton, and 54 in Shellharbour were found to have been invalid during the election, according to analysis ordered by the NSW Electoral Commission.

To "protect the integrity of the electoral system," the Electoral Commission asked the Supreme Court to throw out the election results.

The cost of holding the necessary re-elections was ordered to be covered by the NSW Electoral Commission.

Additionally, the commission announced that iVote wouldn't be used in the state elections of 2023 while it rebuilt the software.

What about Australia's other regions?

Election laws in Queensland prohibit online voting in any form, but those who meet certain criteria can use electronic voting assistance, such as those who need assistance to vote due to a disability or those who live more than 20 kilometers from a polling place.  

In those circumstances, a two-step telephone voting procedure created to enable voters to cast a secret ballot is available.  

Online voting is not permitted in Victoria's local government or state elections.

Despite once having an "express voting" system, Tasmania has never had a fully online voting system.

Express voting, which functioned similarly to sending an email for state House of Assembly and Legislative Council elections between 2010 and 2018, was discontinued after a 2018 cybersecurity review revealed it was insufficiently safe and secure.  

Additionally, South Australian voters are unable to vote online.

Voters could only register for a postal vote in the most recent state election if the request was made with enough time for it to be returned before election day, when a large portion of the population was either ill with COVID-19 or isolating as a close contact.

A COVID testing station was where those who entered isolation just days before the election could pick up their ballots.

Since 2017, electronic voting has been available in state elections in Western Australia, but only under specific conditions, such as for voters with accessibility issues.  

The ballot is read to eligible voters, who then click a button on a keyboard to cast their ballot.  

Between 2,000 and 3,000 people were qualified to use this system, Martin Drum, a senior lecturer in politics at Notre Dame University, both for pre-election voting and on election day.

An e-voting card is used to authenticate votes on a computer at a voting terminal in the ACT's electronic voting system, which has been used in every election since 2001.

No votes are cast or sent over an open network, such as the internet.

The region has enthusiastically embraced electronic voting, even introducing a limited version of online voting for Canberrans living abroad.  

In the city's 15 special polling places for the 2020 territory election, 70% of voters cast their ballots electronically.  

Computer-assisted voting, according to ACT electoral commissioner Damian Cantwell, produced the fewest informal votes ever and the fastest-ever outcome. However, he claimed that widespread online voting was inappropriate due to "significant complexity and extremely high risks, including significant cyber risks."

The Northern Territory's electoral commission submitted a proposal for the introduction of electronic voting in 2018, despite the fact that the Northern Territory had recently reviewed its electoral laws and dropped previous requirements for early and postal voting to encourage more Territorians to vote. However, that has not yet occurred.

For local council, state, or federal elections, the territory does not currently provide an option for online voting.

What can Australia gain from studying other nations?

Since 2007, Estonian citizens have been able to vote in local, national, and European elections online using personal computers or phones equipped with ID card readers.

It is still the only nation where voters can use the internet to cast their ballots.

Numerous other nations, including the United States, Brazil, Philippines, India, Namibia, and Mongolia, use electronic voting machines.

When outgoing president Donald Trump asserted without providing any supporting evidence that the machines cost him millions of votes during the 2020 election, electronic voting erupted into a contentious issue in the United States.  

Members of Trump's own former administration, state governments, and courts all rejected his claims of voter fraud. ( Jonathan Ernst is a Reuters )

The nation employs a variety of electronic voting systems, including direct recording electronic voting machines, in which a voter casts a ballot on a machine, which then records the outcome.

Another type is optical scanners, which require voters to mark their ballots on paper before inserting them into machines that count the votes.  

Additionally, there are ballot marking devices, which let a voter cast a ballot using an electronic device while a paper ballot is printed by the machine. After that, the ballot is run through an optical scanner.  

A majority government was formed by Labor.

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