Electronic voting and counting
eVACS is the computer system used in ACT Legislative Assembly elections.
The system has two parts: electronic voting and electronic counting.
The electronic voting system is used in early voting centres which are open for two weeks before polling day, and again on election day.
In polling places that don't have electronic voting, voters still use traditional paper ballots.
In electronic polling places, voters are given a choice of voting electronically or on paper.
Read about ballot papers.
How to vote electronically
When you arrive at a polling place that offers electronic voting, you’ll be marked off the electoral roll by an official.
You don’t have to vote electronically. You can ask to vote with a paper ballot, and officials will give you a ballot paper and guide you to a normal cardboard voting booth.
Read how to complete your ballot paper.
Unique e-voting card
If you choose to vote electronically, instead of a ballot paper you’ll be given a unique e-voting card with a QR code printed on it.
The cards are pre-printed and can’t be used to identify you from the QR code. It only identifies your electorate, the polling place, and contains a digital signature to prevent forgery.
Electronic voting booth
You then move to an electronic voting booth. This resembles a normal cardboard voting booth but has a touch screen computer mounted in it and a barcode scanner.
Each voting screen has a poster with step-by-step instructions.
Voting on the touch screen
The screen will give you instructions and prompts, and you’ll be taken through the following process:
- Scan the QR code on your e-voting card using the barcode scanner.
- Choose your language by touching the language you wish to use on the screen.
- The ballot paper will display with instructions on how to cast your vote, and how to ask for help.
- Zoom in and scroll by touching the buttons if the lettering is too small for you to read.
- Select the candidates you wish to vote for by touching the candidate box next to the candidate's name in the order you wish.
- Correct any mistakes by undoing the last selection or undoing all selections and starting again.
- Confirm your choices or go back to make changes.
- Scan the QR code again to submit your vote.
Place your e-voting card in the ballot box on your way out.
Electronic counting
The eVACS system also includes a counting module.
Data from scanned ballot papers is imported into the counting machine, which also receives vote data from electronic voting.
Electronic counting occurs according to the Hare-Clark voting system.
Read about:
eVACS software
The software for eVACS is built in the Ada programming language. This is a coding language intended for the development of high integrity software used in systems where highly reliable operation is essential.
The software for eVACS was built and is owned by Software Improvements.
Audit and certification
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.
Elections ACT engaged an independent source code auditor to conduct a full source code review of the eVACS system.
The auditor verified that:
- eVACS meets the requirements of the Electoral Act 1992
- they found no code that would alter an election result
- the code is free of any malicious or unintentional content that would have the effect of altering the election result.
View the eVACS source code certification [PDF 649KB].
Public review of source code
Elections ACT invites a public review of the eVACS source code for the 2024 ACT election.
View how to contact us.
The code for eVACS is owned by Software Improvements and provided for public scrutiny purposes only and is not free software.
The downloadable source code does not include:
- artefacts produced during the eVACS development process, such as detailed design specifications
- the base Linux operating system and configuration files
- the scripts used to initialise the vote databases and invoke the eVACS modules
- standard ADA libraries such as aws, gnatcoll and GtkAda.