State election candidate resources
Candidate resources
It's important for anyone who wants to be a candidate to know how key election processes work. The candidate handbook has about:
- how elections work
- how to nominate
- what happens in the voting and counting periods.
Candidate Helper
Candidate Helper is now available for independent candidates. We strongly encourage you to use this tool to generate your nomination information before nominations open on Wednesday 4 November.
If you don’t use Candidate Helper, you must complete your nomination forms manually. Find more information on how to nominate.
2026 state election candidate handbooks
The 2026 state election handbooks are your source of truth during all stages of the election.
The candidate handbooks have detailed information on how to nominate, guidelines for how-to-vote cards (HTVCs), funding and political donation requirements, and more.
We recommend you download and familiarise yourself with the content of the candidate handbooks. You can also pick up a hard copy of any of these documents at an election office from Wednesday 4 November.
The ballot material colour chart contains the reference colours of ballot material to help you create how-to-vote cards. Ballot papers will be printed on the region colour paper, with an identifying district colour stripe across the top of the paper. Find out more about registering how-to-vote cards.
Campaigners
We're introducing a new campaigner handbook for the 2026 state election to help campaigners and those supporting candidates outside voting centres in their important roles.
Scrutineers
All candidates can appoint scrutineers to observe election activities on their behalf. This includes ballot paper issuing and vote counting.
Candidates and scrutineers should read the scrutineers handbook to find out more about the role and responsibilities of a scrutineer.
Please note, these handbooks contain diagrams and figures that cannot be read by a screen reader. Please contact us if you need this information in an alternative format.