Final report - Voting centre accessibility

Chapter 9 Measuring and reporting on accessibility and inclusivity

9.1 Introduction

As discussed in Chapter 3, the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has several plans and policy frameworks that relate to accessibility and inclusivity. However, much of this is defined at a high level and many aspects of election delivery for people with disability are not measured. This makes it difficult to thoroughly assess the VEC’s efforts and to hold the VEC to account. Similarly, although there is some reporting, this could be much more complete and informative.

Section 9.2 of this chapter looks at how the VEC currently measures its education and engagement activities, including activities intended to support people with disability.

Section 9.3 discusses why the VEC should thoroughly evaluate both new initiatives and ongoing practices. The VEC has not evaluated some new initiatives at past elections well. Improvements in evaluation would enable the VEC to learn from unsuccessful trials and provide better services in the future.

Section 9.4 provides suggestions on how the VEC could improve performance measurement and reporting. Section 9.5 identifies some data sources that the VEC could use. Overall, the Committee would like to see the VEC strengthen its existing performance measurement and reporting practices. This should include producing a specific accessibility performance report after each election.

Better performance measurement will help the VEC understand whether its plans are having the intended effects and, if not, why. This is essential for identifying future improvements. The VEC’s Election infrastructure location strategy recognises this, identifying a need to ‘Capture elector feedback and implement continual improvements where possible’ and to ‘Ensure electoral process and service delivery decisions are data-led and evidence-based.’[1] Detailed measures will be essential for these goals to be achieved.

In addition, increasing the transparency about what the VEC intends to do and how successful its efforts are will create opportunities for external input and for holding the VEC to account. Transparency is also critical for ensuring that trust in the electoral system is maintained and public money is well spent.

9.2 How the VEC currently measures its education and engagement activities

The VEC’s current framework for reducing barriers for people with disability is its Disability education and engagement plan. As discussed in Section 3.4.1, this plan sets out intended outcomes, goals and actions defined at a high level. For example, actions in the plan include:

  • ‘review and evaluate our accessible enrolment and voting options’
  • ‘address barriers for parents, carers, and workers who help people vote’
  • ‘build the skills of carers and support workers to help people vote’.[2]

No further details about these actions are included in the plan. However, the plan notes that a monitoring and evaluation plan is available on request, which supplies more detail.[3]

The Monitoring and evaluation plan for the 2025–2027 VEC education and engagement plans contains a program logic that provides some additional details about the outputs associated with the planned actions. It also contains 34 evaluation questions, with at least 56 associated measures, to measure the implementation of the Disability education and engagement plan and other plans. Of these 34 questions, 23 have at least one quantified target.[4] The remaining 11 questions have measures but no quantified targets, either because the VEC is still waiting on baseline data or the targets are to be assessed through qualitative data.[5]

The majority of the measures relate to processes, such as the proportion of planned activities implemented, attendance rates for advisory groups, ensuring that the advisory group members are appropriate and the number of participants in particular programs.

There are also some measures which relate to the effectiveness of the VEC’s advisory groups (such as the Electoral Access Advisory Group—see Section 9.4.2). Measures of the advisory groups include:

  • members’ satisfaction
  • whether members see themselves as contributing to VEC planning or implementation
  • the proportion of recommendations from group members that are adopted by the VEC in planning or implementation.

More broadly, there are several quantified outcomes measures (for the Disability education and engagement plan and other plans). These may give some indication of whether the VEC’s efforts are actually assisting people with disability:

  • the number of enrolments for priority groups
  • the election participation rates for priority groups
  • the proportion of participants in the Democracy Ambassador program who know how to vote and complete a ballot paper correctly.

The Committee is pleased to see a focus on outcomes with these measures. However, the VEC notes that its ability to collect enrolment and voting data for people with disability is limited to what can be gathered through a coded enrolment process associated with its community education and engagement activities.[6] This is a serious limitation, especially as there are no other outcomes measures in the monitoring and evaluation plan that relate to some of the key objectives of the Disability education and engagement plan.

The VEC is also planning stakeholder consultation to assess the impact of programs on priority group stakeholders. This includes whether they have greater awareness and understanding of the VEC and electoral participation; and whether they are more likely to facilitate the electoral participation of priority communities. However, it is not clear exactly what is being measured with these indicators, as the targets are simply listed as ‘qualitative’.

Overall, the Committee considers that the monitoring and evaluation plan is a valuable part of the VEC’s performance measuring system. However, the system as a whole could be improved with a number of changes, especially including some additional measures. These are discussed in Sections 9.4 and 9.5 of this chapter.

The VEC’s Monitoring and evaluation plan for the 2025–2027 VEC education and engagement plans contains 34 evaluation questions with associated performance measures. These are used to assess the effectiveness of the VEC’s efforts to improve inclusivity in elections, including the Disability education and engagement plan and the Electoral Access Advisory Group. The measures look at a variety of aspects, including processes, effectiveness and outcomes. However, some measures are limited in their breadth or not quantified. There are also additional measures which should be added to more fully evaluate the VEC’s efforts.

9.3 To make progress, the VEC must evaluate its efforts to make elections more accessible and inclusive

Evaluation of both new initiatives and ongoing practices is critical for understanding whether the VEC is meeting the needs of all voters. Evaluation is also essential to learn how to improve services in the future.

9.3.1 New initiatives must be properly evaluated

In recent elections, the VEC has trialled multiple initiatives to support people with disability. The VEC is planning further initiatives with the 2026 election. Robust evaluations of these initiatives will help the VEC and stakeholders to understand whether the initiatives are effective and if they are the best use of the VEC’s resources.

Evaluation can be particularly important when an initiative is unsuccessful or where few voters use it. Robust evaluation can help to identify whether the limited use is because there was relatively little demand for that sort of service or because the way it was implemented could be improved (for example, better placement of signs or more advertising about the service before the election).

The VEC has not evaluated some previous trials in depth

In previous years, the VEC has not thoroughly evaluated some initiatives. The Committee asked the VEC about its evaluation of two previous trials of services for people with disability: the Voters Voice app (see Section 6.7.1) and the virtual Auslan interpreting service (see Section 6.5). In both cases, the project had less usage than the VEC had hoped for.[7]

With the app, the VEC was able to evaluate its effectiveness with usage statistics and 100 in-app reviews, 40 of which included comments.[8] Despite generally favourable reviews, the VEC discontinued the project, deciding to deliver most of the functions through the website instead (see Section 6.7.1).

With the interpreting service, there was much less data to evaluate the program. As part of the post-election evaluation commissioned by the VEC (see Section 9.5), voters who had used the service were asked how satisfied they were and how the service might be improved.[9] However, only two people who had used the service were included in the survey sample.[10] As a result, there would have been limited value to the data.

When asked about evaluation to understand why usage of the interpreting service was less than the VEC expected, the VEC stated:

While lower than hoped, the number of interactions at the 2022 state election was consistent with previous state elections as well as federal elections (according to Deaf Victoria’s submission to this inquiry, there were 107 interactions nationwide at the 2025 federal election). Therefore, no evaluation was warranted into usage levels.[11]

The Committee also asked about the evaluation of another trial that the VEC had conducted. At the 2022 election, the VEC trialled printing QR codes on voting compartments and queue signage linking to information in multiple languages. The project was trialled in one district during the early voting period. As with Voters Voice and the Auslan interpreting service, usage was low, with only nine scans of the QR code in total.[12]

The VEC did not conduct any further evaluation to understand why the usage of the QR codes was so low or whether there were any changes that might have increased usage. The VEC explained:

Given that it [the trial] was not responding to a specific identified need or voter demand, and rather testing whether there would be any significant level of uptake from the initiative, the very low interaction rate did not warrant further evaluation for the initiative.[13]

The Committee does not share the view that further evaluation was unnecessary in either of these cases.

The fact that the low usage of the Auslan interpreting service was consistent with previous efforts does not mean that usage could not be improved or that there was nothing to learn. It is particularly hard to understand the VEC’s reasoning given that the VEC was subsequently considering actions to boost usage.[14]

It is also hard to understand the VEC’s reasoning for not evaluating the trial of QR codes. Because the trial was testing whether there would be significant usage, it provided an opportunity to understand why the usage was low and use this information to better design future projects. The fact that it was a trial of whether or not there would be significant usage is not, as the VEC argues, a reason to not investigate the low usage.

The Committee is disappointed by the VEC’s explanations for why it did not evaluate these initiatives more thoroughly. Failing to evaluate them means that the VEC is unable to learn what was problematic. Evaluation could help identify whether the concept was inappropriate, the way that it was implemented was flawed, more communication was needed or whether there was some other reason for the low usage. By not investigating these matters, the VEC deprives itself of an opportunity to learn from these trials and to use those learnings to better meet voters’ needs in the future.

New initiatives and changes to service delivery at the 2026 election should be more thoroughly evaluated

For the 2026 election, the VEC anticipates trialling several new initiatives for people with disability. These include:

The VEC has also made changes to:

  • mobile voting (see Section 3.2.1)
  • the targets for the proportion of voting centres that are classified as ‘assisted wheelchair access’ or ‘independent wheelchair access’ (see Section 3.4.3)
  • the content of the EasyVote guide and how it is distributed (see Section 7.4)
  • training for election officials (see Section 8.4).

It is important for the VEC to establish ways of evaluating all of these initiatives and changes to identify potential problems, to ensure that they are actually reducing barriers for people with disability and to check that the programs have not inadvertently created new barriers. At the same time, as noted by one submitter, the VEC must ensure that the new approaches do not compromise the integrity of the election and public confidence.[15] Transparency in the VEC’s evaluation processes is critical for this.

Regarding low-sensory voting, the Committee notes that other jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand are trialling different approaches (see Section 4.4). Robust evaluations of each approach, with the evaluations shared between commissions, would facilitate the most effective approach being taken across Australia and New Zealand. As discussed in Section 4.4, the VEC’s trial at the 2026 election will see low-sensory voting offered at one voting centre per district on the day before the early voting period and (if previous practice is followed) promoted for neurodivergent voters rather than the full range of people who may benefit. If usage is less than anticipated, it will be important to understand whether it was the locations, the timing, the targeted communications or other factors. Understanding Victorian voters’ experiences and comparing them to other states’ approaches will help to better understand this.

The Committee has also recommended a number of changes throughout this report and would expect to see these carefully evaluated when implemented.

9.3.2 Ongoing practices must be properly evaluated

In addition to evaluating new initiatives, the VEC also needs to evaluate its ongoing practices. Evaluation can help the VEC understand whether these practices are achieving the VEC’s goals, meeting people’s needs or creating barriers.

The VEC currently conducts its own evaluation after elections and also commissions an independent evaluation after state elections (see Section 9.5). At the time of writing this report, the performance measures used by the VEC in its own evaluation were being reviewed.[16] The Committee has therefore not been able to examine these.

The performance measures used at the 2022 election provided little information about people with disability. The VEC counted the proportion of voting centres that met its criteria for ‘independent wheelchair access’ and ‘assisted wheelchair access’, noted compliance with website accessibility guidelines and had several measures of the Democracy Ambassador program and its workshops.[17]

The Committee would like to see more reporting about ongoing practices. Throughout this report, several problem areas have been noted which should be monitored, including:

In addition, it would be helpful to understand the usage, effectiveness and satisfaction with ongoing services intended to support people with disability, such as:

  • the wheelchair accessibility ratings of voting centres, including the accuracy of the VEC’s assessment processes and whether sufficient information is provided to voters to determine the best way to vote for them (see Sections 4.2 and 7.6)
  • the provision of information about voting (see Chapter 7)
  • accessibility tools (see Section 6.3)
  • assistive listening systems (see Section 6.4)
  • the online Auslan interpreting service (see Section 6.5).

The Committee has identified some ways that ongoing practices could be measured and reported on. These are discussed in Sections 9.4 and 9.5 of this chapter.

It is important for both new initiatives and ongoing practices to be monitored and reported on. Monitoring should be sufficiently detailed to enable proper evaluation, identifying whether or not the VEC is meeting the needs of people with disability and, if not, what should be done differently in future elections.

9.4 How measurement and reporting could be improved

The Committee would like to see two changes to the VEC’s reporting on the election experience for people with disability. Firstly, there is scope for improved reporting on the Disability education and engagement plan. Secondly, the Committee would like to see the VEC produce a dedicated accessibility performance report after each election.

9.4.1 Improving reporting on the Disability education and engagement plan

The Committee has previously raised concerns about the performance measurement and reporting associated with the VEC’s strategies and plans. In 2024, the Committee analysed several strategies and plans and found that the plans generally featured ‘lists of actions, many of which are not clearly defined and often lack clear and quantifiable measures and targets.’[18]

The Committee recommended:

That, in developing future plans and strategies, the VEC include concrete actions, measures and quantified targets in the original plan at the time of release, so that stakeholders have a better understanding of what the VEC intends to do and the VEC can more transparently report against those plans and strategies.[19]

The VEC supported this recommendation in principle.[20] However, the Disability education and engagement plan, which was published after the Committee’s recommendation, still listed actions at a very high level and did not include measures or targets.

While additional details were subsequently included in a monitoring and evaluation plan, specific actions and targets should have been included in the plan when it was first released. The Committee considers that additional useful measures could have been included as well. There is also scope for improved reporting on the progress of this and other plans.

Including specific actions and targets in the plan from the beginning

As noted above, the planned actions in the Disability education and engagement plan are generally described at a high level. For example, one of the VEC’s actions is ‘support people impacted by the “cognitive impairment” provision in legislation’.[21] A wide range of actions could be covered by this description. This could mean publishing a paragraph of information on its website. Or it may cover more ambitious plans, such as advocating for legislative change or conducting an awareness and education campaign. Any of these and many other actions would be covered by the description in the Disability education and engagement plan. The community therefore has no idea whether the VEC is planning to do a lot or a little on this topic and no chance to provide informed feedback.

The monitoring and evaluation plan provides more detail. In that document, we learn that the VEC intends to produce a ‘research report on impacts of unsound mind provisions’.[22] However, the monitoring and evaluation plan is a separate document which is not published on the VEC’s website. The community therefore does not have access to that information about the VEC’s plans. It would be much better practice to have included this level of detail in the Disability education and engagement plan from the beginning.

Quantified targets should also have been established and published from the beginning. It is a weakness of the current plan that it was published without quantified targets. Although some targets were included in the monitoring and evaluation plan, many targets were not quantified. Even half-way through the plan’s 2025–27 timeframe, a significant number of targets are still listed as ‘TBC’. In addition, there are multiple measures where the target is simply listed as ‘qualitative’ with no further details.

The VEC has also made at least one commitment relating to disability that is not reflected in the Disability education and engagement plan. In 2023, the VEC declared that it would, ‘consider better promotion opportunities for Auslan interpreting services with the aim to boost access and usage’.[23] This and any other commitments should have been included in the Disability education and engagement plan so that the document could bring together all of the VEC’s planned actions in one place.

The Committee would like to see more specific actions set out in future disability plans. Elections ACT’s plan could be used as a model.[24] The Committee would also like to see measures and targets included in the Disability education and engagement plan at the time of publication. This would more clearly communicate the VEC’s intentions to the community. It would also provide for more accountability.

Measuring what can be measured

There is also scope for additional quantified performance measures related to the Disability education and engagement plan. For example, one of the plan’s intended outcomes is ‘reduced reports of accessibility issues during and after elections’,[25] which could be easily measured as part of the VEC’s regular analysis of complaints and feedback after elections.[26] Planned activities like delivering electoral education in specialist schools[27] could also be easily quantified.

Similarly, the VEC plans to develop and promote ‘electoral education resources’ for people with disability and produce resources for support people, including videos.[28] The number of views of online videos could be measured to get some understanding of the reach of these resources. In fact, reporting on previous videos has indicated that a low number of views has been a problem,[29] which would make including it as a performance measure particularly informative.

The Committee notes that the data would need to be interpreted and analysed carefully. For example, a decrease in the number of complaints can reflect less accessible complaint channels rather than improving services. An increase in complaints can reflect greater awareness or trust in the organisation rather than worse service. However, appropriate measures could be derived from the data that the VEC has or could collect. Looking at complaints about accessibility issues as rates (rather than raw numbers), examining complaints to identify repeated themes and supplementing data with qualitative evidence could provide useful measures. Establishing targets and reporting on these measures would provide more transparency and accountability.

In addition, more use could be made of the data collected as part of the post-election evaluations to understand the overall effectiveness of the plan and to identify problem areas (see Section 9.5).

Increasing transparency and reporting

For transparency purposes, the monitoring and evaluation plan should be published on the VEC’s website. The final evaluation report should also be published on the VEC’s website when the plan is complete.

The plan states that the VEC will ‘publish a yearly progress summary in our VEC annual reports.’[30] However, the quality and details of information in annual reports has varied. The Committee raised concerns about how the VEC reported on its advisory groups in its 2022–23 annual report.[31] Some additional measures were added to the VEC’s reporting in 2023–24, but these measures were rolled back in the 2024–25 report.[32] Although the VEC’s monitoring and evaluation plan has at least 56 measures, the 2024–25 report only discussed five of them and did not compare the results to targets. The Committee would like to see much more thorough progress reporting in future annual reports, including all measures and comparisons to targets.

The Disability education and engagement plan sets out goals, objectives and actions for the VEC with respect to people with disability. However, many of its actions are defined at a high level, leading to a lack of clarity about what the VEC intends to do. In addition, measures and targets are not included in the plan, but in a separate document which is not published. There is also scope for additional measures and additional transparency about the VEC’s progress.

That the VEC change the way that it produces plans like the Disability education and engagement plan, with future plans:

  • being more specific about what actions are planned
  • including performance measures and targets in the plan from the beginning
  • using all the relevant data that it collects to measure and report on activity
  • including all commitments related to the topic.

That the VEC report comprehensively on plans such as the Disability education and engagement plan, including:

  • reporting on all performance measures as part of progress reports
  • comparing results to targets when reporting and explaining discrepancies
  • publishing final evaluation reports on the VEC’s website at the end of a plan’s timeframe.

9.4.2 Improving reporting on the Electoral Access Advisory Group

The Electoral Access Advisory Group (see Section 3.5) consists of representatives from stakeholder groups related to people with disability. The advice from this group is important in providing the VEC with expertise and the lived experience of people with disability.

As discussed in Section 9.2, the VEC has some measures relating to this group in its monitoring and evaluation plan. One of the key metrics, which is reported in the VEC’s annual report, is the proportion of recommendations from the VEC’s advisory groups that are adopted (in full or part).[33] In the annual report, one figure is reported aggregating all recommendations from all advisory groups. In correspondence, the VEC informed the Committee that there was one recommendation from the Electoral Access Advisory Group in 2024–25 and it was implemented.[34]

With only one recommendation coming out of the group in a year, tracking the implementation of recommendations provides relatively little information about the effectiveness of the group. The Committee understands that the advisory group does more than make recommendations, such as providing input to plans and advice on implementing initiatives. Detailing how feedback from the group has influenced decisions would therefore be one way to improve reporting. This could be part of accessibility performance reports (see Section 9.4.3).

9.4.3 Introducing accessibility performance reports

Ngaweeyan Maar-oo suggested that the VEC publish an accessibility performance report after each election:

VEC should publish an accessibility performance report that includes compliance with the minimum standard, incident and complaint themes, the actions taken to rectify issues, both immediately and long-term, and a time-bound improvement plan. Reporting should include trends across election cycles and a regional equity lens, so Parliament and communities can assess whether accessibility is improving in practice.

Transparent and continuous reporting is an essential tool that supports voter, caregiver, and community decision-making, highlights ongoing needs and areas for improvement, and supports long-term accountability.[35]

The Committee considers that this would be worthwhile. The VEC does include some reporting on accessibility as part of its post-election reports. However, this tends to be split and discussed under various different themes (e.g. community engagement, voting, evaluation) rather than looking at the whole experience of voters with disability. Preparing a section with a dedicated accessibility performance report would enable a whole-of-journey perspective (see Section 1.4.2) to be taken and would provide a clearer understanding of how successfully the VEC has reduced barriers to participation for people with disability. It would also provide an opportunity for the VEC to report on its work identifying and reducing barriers, including physical, sensory and communication-based barriers.

As discussed in Section 4.2.5, the Committee would also like to see the VEC develop and publish a venue selection framework at future elections. This would transparently set out the VEC’s intentions for selecting early and election-day voting centres. This should also include performance measures that assess the suitability of venues, including a broad range of accessibility features. This should be reported on as part of the accessibility performance report.

When reporting on the VEC’s efforts to support people with disability, it is important for the VEC to take account of the fact that people with disability may also face other barriers. As noted in Section 2.2.1, factors such as age, cultural background, location, socio-economic status and gender may add to the barriers experienced by people with disability.

These intersectional factors need to be considered by the VEC when developing materials and programs (see Section 2.2.1). They also need to be considered when the VEC is evaluating its performance. For example, the Council on the Ageing Victoria recommended:

We encourage the VEC to collect, study and report on longitudinal data on voting method and patterns of voting centre attendance among older people and those with a disability. This data should be cross tabulated with other potential indicators of disenfranchisement such as migrant and First Nations status, rural and regional location and socio-economic disadvantage, especially those living in insecure housing. This data should inform an intersectional approach, ensuring, for example, that older people from non-English speaking backgrounds are supported by disability-accessible signage in community languages.[36]

The Committee agrees and would like to see intersectional aspects monitored and discussed by the VEC in the future when reporting on accessibility performance.

A dedicated accessibility performance report after each election would provide an opportunity for the VEC to report on the voting experience for people with disability from a whole-of-journey perspective and identify areas for future improvement.

That the VEC include a dedicated accessibility performance report in each report to Parliament on an election. The accessibility performance report should include:

  • an analysis of voting for people with disability from a whole-of-journey perspective
  • reporting on efforts to remove a variety of barriers, including physical, sensory and communication-based (not just barriers to wheelchair use)
  • reporting on complaints related to accessibility for people with disability and any actions taken in response
  • reporting on the suitability of voting centres and whether sufficient information was provided to voters
  • evaluations of any new initiatives
  • evaluations of ongoing practices
  • details of what plans and initiatives were shaped by input from the Electoral Access Advisory Group and how the group contributed
  • analyses from an intersectional approach to evaluate services for people with disability who also face other barriers (such as different cultural backgrounds, age, living in remote areas, limited English language skills, gender and imprisonment).

9.5 Gathering more information

The additional performance measurement and reporting recommended in this chapter will require the VEC to gather and analyse more data than it currently tracks and reports on. This may require the VEC to introduce new ways of gathering data, such as additional surveys or recording more data in voting centres.

However, there is also scope for additional useful data to be gathered from the independent evaluation commissioned by the VEC after each election. This evaluation is conducted by an independent organisation using a detailed survey of voters and candidates. These surveys allow the evaluator to investigate a wide range of issues and to ask multiple questions about topics to better understand voters’ and candidates’ experiences.

9.5.1 Adding more questions to the post-election survey

The surveys used in the post-election evaluation typically include a small number of questions specifically relating to services for people with disability. In the 2022 evaluation, the questions included:

  • multiple questions about telephone-assisted voting from voters who used it
  • voters’ satisfaction with the assistance provided to them if they needed assistance related to disability
  • the awareness and use of the Auslan interpreting service for voters who are Deaf or hard of hearing
  • candidates’ perception of whether there is a need to improve services for voters with disability.[37]

The Committee would like to see additional questions about support for people with disability. Additional questions could also be added to better understand people’s experience with both the new initiatives trialled by the VEC and ongoing practices. Particular attention could be paid to the topics set out in Section 9.3 of this chapter.

After each election, the VEC commissions an independent evaluation of its election services through a survey of voters and candidates. This survey asks a number of questions about services for people with disability. Additional questions could be asked to understand more about how satisfied people with disability are with the VEC’s new initiatives and ongoing practices.

That the VEC expand the number of questions asked in the post-election survey to evaluate new initiatives for people with disability and to understand the level of satisfaction of people with disability with ongoing practices. Particular focus should be given to the topics noted in Section 9.3 of this report.

9.5.2 Analysing the data differently

In addition, the survey asked all respondents whether they had any physical disability.[38] Approximately 14% of respondents (434 people) identified as having physical disability. As these respondents were asked numerous questions about their experience during the election, it would be possible to analyse the responses from this group separately to the other respondents. This would provide a holistic understanding of the experience of people with disability at an election and would help to identify particular problem areas.

For example, the data collected in 2022 could be used to assess the following about voters with physical disability without needing to add any additional questions:

  • how satisfied they were with various aspects of their experience at voting centres
  • how satisfied they were with postal voting
  • whether they would have liked more information
  • how easy it was for them to use the VEC’s website
  • whether the VEC’s communication products provided relevant information for them
  • for people who did not vote, their reasons for not voting.

The data could be even more useful if additional questions were added to get some specific details of respondents’ disabilities. Validated functional disability measures should be used (following, for example, the measures adopted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics), with respondents able to select multiple options, self-identify or ‘prefer not to say’. The measures should also extend beyond physical disability (as is currently asked about) to also include sensory, communication, intellectual, cognitive and psychosocial disability.

There are also other demographic questions in the survey, such as age, gender, main language spoken, location and economic status. It may thus be possible to analyse these categories together with the information about disability to get some understanding of intersectionality (where the sample size is large enough).

Although the 2022 post-election evaluation commissioned by the VEC included a question about whether respondents had any physical disability, the answers to the survey questions for this group were not separately analysed or reported. Respondents were not asked about mental or cognitive disability.

That the VEC have questions added to the post-election survey about respondents’ disabilities and broaden the definition of disability to include mental, cognitive, psychosocial and neurodevelopmental disability (such as disability associated with anxiety disorders, neurodivergence or dementia) as well as physical disability.

That the VEC analyse the data from its post-election surveys to better understand the experience of people with disability and their satisfaction with election services. Additional analyses should be conducted to understand intersectional issues where the results are statistically meaningful.

Adopted by the Electoral Matters Committee
Parliament of Victoria, East Melbourne
10 August 2026

  • 1Victorian Electoral Commission, Election infrastructure location strategy, [Melbourne], 2020, pp. 2–3.
  • 2Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 13.
  • 3Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 15.
  • 4Including two which are yes/no measures.
  • 5Victorian Electoral Commission, Monitoring and evaluation plan for the 2025–2027 VEC education and engagement plans, [Melbourne], (n.d.), pp. 8–11.
  • 6Victorian Electoral Commission, Monitoring and evaluation plan for the 2025–2027 VEC education and engagement plans, [Melbourne], (n.d.), p. 7.
  • 7Victorian Electoral Commission, Electoral Access Advisory Group, Meeting minutes, 1 June 2021, p. 3; Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, p. 55; Sven Bluemmel, Electoral Commissioner, Victorian Electoral Commission, correspondence, 29 May 2026, p. 5.
  • 8Conduct, VEC Voters Voice 2 App Nov17, report for the Victorian Electoral Commission, Melbourne, 2018, p. 15.
  • 9Kantar Public, Victorian Electoral Commission: evaluation of services at the 26 November 2022 Victorian State election, report for the Victorian Electoral Commission, 2023, p. 194.
  • 10Kantar Public, Victorian Electoral Commission: evaluation of services at the 26 November 2022 Victorian State election, report for the Victorian Electoral Commission, 2023, p. 89.
  • 11Sven Bluemmel, Electoral Commissioner, Victorian Electoral Commission, correspondence, 29 May 2026, p. 5.
  • 12Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, p. 53.
  • 13Sven Bluemmel, Electoral Commissioner, Victorian Electoral Commission, correspondence, 29 May 2026, p. 4.
  • 14Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, p. 55.
  • 15Nuray Kaya, Submission 19, pp. 2–3; Nuray Kaya, Submission 19a, p. 2.
  • 16Victorian Electoral Commission, Draft service plan: 2026 state election, Melbourne, 2025, p. 62.
  • 17Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, pp. 133–4.
  • 18Parliament of Victoria, Electoral Matters Committee, The conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election, vol. 2, July 2024, p. 194.
  • 19Parliament of Victoria, Electoral Matters Committee, The conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election, vol. 2, July 2024, p. 194, Recommendation 50.
  • 20Victorian Electoral Commission, Response to the Parliament of Victoria, Electoral Matters Committee, Inquiry into the conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election, 18 November 2024, p. 57.
  • 21Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 13.
  • 22Victorian Electoral Commission, Monitoring and evaluation plan for the 2025–2027 VEC education and engagement plans, [Melbourne], (n.d.), p. 18.
  • 23Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, p. 55.
  • 24Elections ACT, Accessibility and inclusion plan 2024–2026, Canberra, 2024.
  • 25Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 14.
  • 26See, for example, Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, Chapter 9.
  • 27Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 13.
  • 28Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 13; Victorian Electoral Commission, Monitoring and evaluation plan for the 2025–2027 VEC education and engagement plans, [Melbourne], (n.d.), p. 18; Victorian Electoral Commission, Draft service plan: 2026 state election, Melbourne, 2025, p. 31.
  • 29Victorian Electoral Commission, Report to Parliament: 2022 Victorian state election and 2023 Narracan District supplementary election, Melbourne, 2023, p. 50.
  • 30Victorian Electoral Commission, Disability education and engagement plan, Melbourne, 2025, p. 15.
  • 31Parliament of Victoria, Electoral Matters Committee, The conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election, vol. 2, July 2024, p. 311.
  • 32Compare Victorian Electoral Commission, Annual report 2022–23, Melbourne, 2023, p. 35; Victorian Electoral Commission, Annual report 2023–24, Melbourne, 2024, p. 32; Victorian Electoral Commission, Annual report 2024–25, Melbourne, 2025, p. 34.
  • 33Victorian Electoral Commission, Annual report 2024–25, Melbourne, 2025, p. 34.
  • 34Sven Bluemmel, Electoral Commissioner, Victorian Electoral Commission, correspondence, 29 May 2026, p. 7.
  • 35Ngaweeyan Maar-oo, Submission 27, p. 4.
  • 36Council on the Ageing Victoria, Submission 29, p. 6.
  • 37Kantar Public, Victorian Electoral Commission: evaluation of services at the 26 November 2022 Victorian State election, report for the Victorian Electoral Commission, 2023, pp. 65–71, 87–9, 126.
  • 38Specifically whether they are ‘blind or low-vision, in a wheelchair, having arthritis or impaired motor function or some other mobility restriction’—Kantar Public, Victorian Electoral Commission: evaluation of services at the 26 November 2022 Victorian State election, report for the Victorian Electoral Commission, 2023, p. 87.