The VEC has provided electronically assisted voting to eligible electors to enable them to cast a vote without the assistance of others in State elections. The two methods available include telephone voting and a touchscreen system.
Most recently at the 2010 State election, blind and low vision electors were able to use a telephone voting facility at any of the VEC's 100 early voting centres across the State. A total of 208 supervised telephones were provided for electors to record their vote via the telephone keypad. Recorded instructions guided the voter through the voting process with audio prompts in twelve languages* including English. At least two telephones were provided at all 100 early voting centres.
Almost 50% of the early voting centres also had the option of an EAV touchscreen system facility for low vision electors to use. Electors could listen to audio cues via a headset and follow the instructions on the touchscreen unaided to make their selections and cast their vote. This system also has the capacity to provide audio cues in twelve languages* (if required) including English.
The VEC provided 79 supervised touchscreen systems across 52 early voting centres. A total of 88 telephones were also made available for use at other early voting centres as required such as Victorian hospitals and nursing homes.
All votes cast by either telephones or touchscreen systems were anonymous and moved through three phases - vote, verify and submit. Upon completion of each virtual ballot paper, the elector was able to review and verify their selections, revise them if they wished and cast their vote. The system advised the elector if they were in danger of recording an informal vote (they may not have recorded any selections), but would still accept the ballot if that was the elector's wish.
Once the vote was cast, it was encrypted for transmission to the VEC's central system. At 6.00pm on election night, several VEC executives used confidential codes to access the electronic votes held on the system, decrypted them and supervised their printing to paper ballots.
* The 11 languages other than English provided include Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Croatian, Greek, Italian, Khmer (Cambodian), Macedonian, Serbian, Turkish and Vietnamese.
Voting via the telephone:
- Upon arrival at the table in the early voting centre where your name is checked off, you should ask to vote 'electronically by telephone'. You will then be asked if you are eligible to vote electronically - are you blind or do you have low vision?
- When you are marked off the roll, an election official will escort you to a telephone in a private voting booth.
- The election official will dial a number and enter the necessary code for you to receive the audio representation of the correct ballot papers for your District and Region.
- You will be able to hear the instructions either in full or in part. You will be able to navigate back and forth between various options and vary the speed and volume of the audio instructions. It is very similar to using telephone banking in terms of the use of the keypad to register your selections.
- The audio interface will guide you through the following steps to allow you to cast your vote:
- Instructions will be provided on how to use the system, including how to change your audio preferences at any point.
- You will be asked to select your preferences for your Lower House District and your Upper House Region.
- You will be able to review and verify your preferences for the Lower House and Upper House.
- You will cast your vote once you have confirmed that you are happy with your selections.
- You will be offered a verbal receipt number. This will not list your preferences; however, the receipt will allow you to go to the VEC website after the election has closed and check that your vote was successfully received. You will not be able to see how you voted, just that the vote was received and processed. If you need help to write down your receipt, an election official can do this for you.
- After the election closes, your vote will be printed and included in the count.
Voting via the touchscreen system
- Upon arrival at the table in the early voting centre where your name is checked off, you should ask to vote 'electronically by touchscreen system'. You will then be asked if you are eligible to vote electronically - are you blind or do you have low vision?
- When you are marked off the roll, you will receive an "electorate card" in place of ballot papers. The electorate card is encoded with your electorate details (your District and your Region) so that the system knows which ballot papers to use. It does not contain any other details that would allow an elector to be identified. You will then be escorted to a voting booth equipped with a touchscreen system.
- The election official will assist you with several display options for text size and colour. If you choose to use the headphones, audio options are also offered such as volume level. You can ask an official to encode your display and audio choices on your "electorate card" or you can choose them yourself once you start using the system. You can amend them at any point.
- By inserting your "electorate card" into the clearly marked card reader, the system will be activated.
- If you choose to use the headphones, voting instructions and options will be read to you as well as shown to you on the screen. You will be able to hear the instructions either in full or in part. You will also be able to navigate back and forth between various options and vary the volume and speed using the telephone keypad.
- The system will guide you through the following steps to allow you to cast your vote:
- Instructions will be provided on how to use the system, including how to change your display and audio preferences at any point.
- You will be asked to select your preferences for your Lower House District and then your Upper House Region.
- You will be able to review and verify your preferences for your Lower House District and your Upper House region.
- You will cast your vote once you have confirmed that you are happy with your selections.
- You will be offered a receipt with a code number. This receipt will not show your preferences; however, the receipt will allow you to go to the VEC website after the election has closed and check that your vote was successfully received. You will not be able to see how you voted, just that the vote was received and processed.
- You remove your "electorate card" and return it to an election official.
- After voting closes, your vote will be printed and included in the count.
The electronic voting system was independently tested and verified by third party software auditors to ensure that it was error free and performed exactly as described. The auditor was able to check the systems at any time to confirm that the audited software is active and in use as expected. The software audit analysis report is available below.
In addition to the traditional security and scrutiny around elections, we also undertook the following measures:
- Deployment of an established high security voting system customised to fit the Victorian electoral system. The system has processed millions of votes in other elections without loss, damage or fraud.
- Provision of computer hardware that remains controlled and supervised at all times during its use. This means that the VEC supervises the use of the systems, including touchscreen systems, network, switches and servers.
- Prudent and minimal use of the Internet. This allows the VEC to take advantage of the reach of the Internet as a simple delivery system whilst avoiding the risks associated with Internet voting or a "voting website".
- The system was made available to selected academics who have experience in electronic voting. These academics advised the VEC on testing and audit.
- Testing was undertaken to identify and eliminate potential threats posed by opportunistic hackers as well as corrupt insiders. Both external and internal penetration testing was performed.
If you used the VEC's telephone or touchscreen voting systems for the 2010 Victorian State election you can check that your vote was received and processed on our dedicated receipt checking page.
