Electronic voting and counting (eVACS®)
The ACT's electronic voting system was the first of its kind to be used for parliamentary elections in Australia. The electronic voting system was first used at the 2001 ACT Legislative Assembly election and has been used at all subsequent elections in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020. The 2024 election will also feature electronic voting at multiple locations across Canberra’s main town centres.
The system uses touch-screen computers as voting terminals, with voters using an e-voting card to authenticate their votes. Voting terminals are linked to a server in each polling location using a secure local area network. No votes are taken or transmitted over a public network like the Internet. For a description of how to cast an electronic vote, click here.
The electronic voting system is used in early voting centres, which are open for two weeks before polling day, and are also open on election day. In polling places that do not have electronic voting, voters still use traditional paper ballots. In electronic polling places, voters are given a choice of voting electronically or on paper.
Electronic counting, which combines the counting of electronic votes and paper ballots, was first used in the ACT at the October 2001 election and was again used in the October 2004 election. In 2001 and 2004, preferences shown on paper ballots were data-entered by two independent operators, electronically checked for errors, and manually corrected if required.
In 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020, an intelligent character recognition scanning system was used to capture preferences on paper ballots, with intensive manual checks used to ensure a very high level of accuracy. This data was then combined with the results of the electronic voting, and the computer program distributed preferences under the ACT's Hare-Clark electoral system. This system will again be used in 2024.
The software for the electronic voting and counting system is built in the Ada language. This is a coding language intended for the development of high integrity software used in systems where highly reliable operation is essential.
- Electronic voting - Frequently asked questions
- The electronic voting process
- Scanning of ballot papers
Source code for the electronic voting and counting system (eVACS®) for the 2024 ACT Legislative Assembly election
The ACT Electoral Commission is committed to delivering the highest possible standard of trusted, transparent, secure and accessible electoral services for the 2024 ACT Legislative Assembly election.
As part of a range of electoral integrity assurance activities, Elections ACT engaged an independent source code auditor to conduct a full source code review of the eVACS® system to be deployed for the 2024 ACT election to provide assurance of the code's integrity and its adherence to the requirements of the Electoral Act 1992.
The auditor has verified that eVACS® accords with the requirements of the Electoral Act 1992, and has not found any code that would have the effect of altering the election result and certified the code is free of any such malicious or unintentional content.
eVACS® source code certification
As an added integrity and transparency measure, Elections ACT now invites a public review of the eVACS® source code for the 2024 ACT election.
| The eVACS® source code is temporarily unavailable to allow for further internal testing by Elections ACT. It will be republished at this location shortly. |
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Feedback on integrity or technical issues with the source code should be provided as soon as practicable, and by 30 August 2024, to ensure appropriate investigations are able to be undertaken in a timely manner prior to the 2024 election.
The software for eVACS® was built and is owned by Software Improvements, is provided for the purpose of study, as an integrity measure and is not free software.
The eVACS® source code, downloadable below is an extract of the voting and counting modules proposed to be used by Elections ACT at the 2024 ACT Legislative Assembly election.
Not included in the supplied source code are:
- artefacts produced during the eVACS® development process, such as detailed design specifications;
- the base Linux operating system and configuration files;
- the scripts that are used to initialise the vote databases and invoke the eVACS® modules.
- standard ADA libraries such as aws, gnatcoll and GtkAda.
Feedback on the source code can be lodged with Elections ACT in accordance with our complaints and feedback policy as follows:
- Online: www.elections.act.gov.au/about_us/contact_details
- By post: GPO 172, Canberra City ACT 2601
- By email: elections@act.gov.au
| The eVACS® source code is temporarily unavailable to allow for further internal testing by Elections ACT. It will be republished at this location shortly. | eVACS® source code - 2024 | |
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