Official final verification of 2023 election results carried out in a few hours, under extreme pressure

The final verification of the official election result was carried out in a few hours, under extreme pressure, on the day of its announcement, according to an investigation.

The rushed assessment, which failed to identify multiple errors in the official results, would normally take two days.

The auditor general’s investigation also identified an additional problem with the official count, which included some apparently dual votes.

John Ryan launched his investigation into the Electoral Commission’s quality control procedures after multiple errors were revealed in the final count.

In November, the Electoral Commission admitted more than 700 votes that had been left out of the final vote and 15 polling places had data entry errors.

The errors did not result in any major changes to the overall results or the seat allocations once modified.

Ryan’s report said the errors occurred because votes were miscounted and, in one case, a ballot box was lost.

The auditor general found that the Electoral Commission’s checks were “ineffective”, “were not carried out correctly” and did not “prevent or detect the errors identified”.

“Electorate quality checks did not detect the errors because, in some cases, those checks were not carried out or were not carried out with the rigor they required, for reasons that I describe below.

“The National Office’s quality checks did not detect these errors, partly because the checks were not carried out with sufficient rigor due to the short time available.

“My staff was informed that some electorate managers placed undue reliance on quality assurance checks being carried out at the National Office, while the National Office may have made assumptions about the rigor applied by electorate managers in carrying out carry out its reasonableness controls”.

Even if Electoral Commission staff had carried out proper checks, Ryan said they would not have been effective.

“Not all official counting controls were well understood, not all controls were monitored, and there was nothing established to provide evidence that quality assurance checks had been or had been performed correctly,” their report said.

The auditor general identified several factors that he thought had contributed to a situation where mistakes could be made and go undetected, including an increase in late registrations and special votes.

In the two weeks leading up to the October election, more people than ever (454,000 people) registered to vote, including more than 100,000 registrations on Election Day.

The Electoral Commission was not expecting this number of late registrations, which put pressure on its systems, the report said.

“There were not enough staff to process the volume of registrations on Election Day in the time allowed to complete them,” the report said.

There were also 600,000 special votes cast, an increase of 100,000 compared to the 2020 election, putting further pressure on staff.

These increases caused a delay in the work of the Electoral Commission, which meant that there was little time to carry out the final verification of the result.

“A final quality control process that would normally last two days was completed in a few hours, under extreme pressure, on the day the official result was announced.

“The final quality control process failed to detect and prevent errors in the official results.”

More problems identified with the official count

During their investigation, the auditor general’s staff found another problem with the official electoral count, which meant that dual votes had apparently been counted.

The Electoral Commission ordered electoral staff to resolve any outstanding and apparent double votes, the night before the official result was announced.

Staff had been instructed to use “the best information they had at the time,” according to the report.

“This instruction was not universally implemented, meaning that some apparently dual votes were included in the official results.

The Electoral Commission was not aware that instructions had not been followed, so this issue was not considered as part of the judicial recount processes, the report states.

The Electoral Commission has since reviewed the results and confirmed that the error did not change the result in any electorate.

recommendations

Auditor-General John Ryan made seven recommendations which he said the Electoral Commission accepted.

• Review all vote counting and quality assurance controls and checks to address gaps and vulnerabilities;
• Review and update standard operating manuals and instructions, to improve the clarity of information about quality control activities and why they are important and to clarify accountability and responsibility for carrying them out;
• Complete the end-to-end description of the electoral process and the interdependencies of activities, and identify controls that support the electoral process;
• Review election staffing requirements, the poll worker recruitment and training process, and planning for contingencies (such as staff unavailability, system outages, and fatigue);
• Review hardware requirements to ensure voters have sufficient technology to complete the tasks required of them;
• Review information technology systems supporting the electoral process to ensure they remain suitable for the functions of both the electorate and the National Office; and
• Improve risk identification processes and continue to apply program and project management disciplines (including risk management) throughout the electoral period.

Mistakes made “by people under pressure”

In a statement, electoral chief Karl Le Quesne said the errors would not have affected the result in an electorate or in the party vote.

“There will always be errors in a predominantly manual process and we must ensure that our processes and controls detect them effectively,” Le Quesne said.

“These were errors made by people under pressure. While the errors were too small to affect the results, we deeply regret that they occurred. Our priority is to improve the systems and controls we have in place and continue to hold elections with integrity.”

The recommendations will be fully implemented, he said.

Work already underway includes:

• A comprehensive internal review of the conduct of the 2023 general election and the post-election period
• Adoption of a new assurance framework
• Audits of post-election and registration processes to identify other gaps or improvements.
• Review of operational manuals and training to improve the implementation of quality assurance controls during elections.
• Prioritize improvements to post-election processes to improve the integrity and timeliness of the official count
• Approve short-term changes to strengthen the official counting process for any by-elections required before a full vote.
• Review of post-electoral processes completes