Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Electoral Matters Committee

Ballot Paper Shortages at the 2022 Victorian State Election

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:23): Pursuant to section 35 of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2023, I table a special report on ballot paper shortages at the 2022 Victorian state election and implementation of recommendation 60 of volume 2 of the inquiry into the conduct of the 2022 Victorian state election. I move:

That the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Lee TARLAMIS: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

During the 2022 state election multiple voting centres ran out of ballot papers on election day and at least one voting centre closed early. Although the Victorian Electoral Commission provided information on these matters to the committee on request, the VEC chose not to discuss them in its report to Parliament on the 2022 election other than noting some voter complaints about ballot paper shortages. The committee published the results of its investigation into these matters as part of its report on the 2022 state election. However, the committee was not satisfied that the issues had been fully explored and reported on. The committee therefore recommended that the VEC produce a supplementary report dealing with what occurred and how the VEC intends to respond.

The VEC’s supplementary report was provided to the committee in February 2025. Following this, the committee prepared a special report on the implementation of this recommendation and the additional information that was in the VEC’s report. The committee considers that these events represent serious errors by the VEC in relation to the running of the election, communicating with the public and being transparent with the Parliament. As a result, our supplementary report made two findings and a recommendation as follows:

FINDING 1: The full extent and impact of ballot paper shortages at the 2022 Victorian state election is still unclear. There remain questions about which voting centres ran out of ballot papers, how long voters were unable to vote at these centres, the timing of additional ballot paper deliveries, whether voters were told to attend other voting centres and how many voters were affected in total. The 166 people who filled out ‘voter information reports’ may not be the full number of people who were unable to vote on election day due to ballot paper shortages.

RECOMMENDATION 1: That the Victorian Electoral Commission investigate low-tech processes that will enable it to record information about every voting centre that runs out of ballot papers at future elections, including when each voting centre ran out of ballot papers, when new ballot papers were provided and how many people were impacted.

…

FINDING 2: Implementing electronic roll mark-off at all voting centres would reduce the likelihood of voting centres running out of ballot papers, would make multiple voting more difficult and may assist with managing queuing times. The VEC intends to implement this gradually across future elections. The Committee would like to see this rolled out as quickly as possible and in as many voting centres as possible at the 2026 Victorian state election.

Clearly there is more work to be done, and I would note that the VEC has committed to multiple actions to address these risks in future elections.

I would like to also thank members of the committee for their work on this report: from this chamber, Jacinta Ermacora, Evan Mulholland, Dr Sarah Mansfield and David Ettershank; and in the other place, the chair Dylan Wight, deputy chair Chris Crewther, Emma Kealy and Nathan Lambert. I would also like to thank the committee secretariat, executive officer Dr Christopher Gribbin, research officer Dr Chiara De Lazzari and administrative officer Sarah Catherall, without whom we would not be able to do the important work that we do.

Motion agreed to.