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House of Representatives                                Ch 8                                                 p 282

Electronic voting

Of all these proposals the question of electronic voting has received the most attention. In 1970 the Joint Select Committee on the New and Permanent Parliament House agreed that, although the installation of electronic voting was not desirable at that time, the Chambers in the new Parliament House should be provided with all necessary conduits and ducts in preparation for the possible installation of electronic voting cabling at a later date. ¹ In 1993 the Speaker and a small group of parliamentary staff members inspected electronic voting facilities in operation in various overseas Parliaments. In its report to the House ² the inspection team stated that it was impressed with the equipment inspected, its speed of operation, accuracy and stated reliability. The report recommended that the Government, Opposition and other non-government Members should confer to seek in-principle agreement to the installation of electronic voting equipment in the House of Representatives Chamber. The voting system proposed was to retain the traditional voting method of Members dividing to the right or left of the Chair, with Members recording their votes, irrespective of where they actually sat for the division, by means of personal electronic cards.

In 1996 the Procedure Committee looked at electronic voting as part of its wider review of the conduct of divisions, but decided to defer consideration of the option in the belief that the costs involved precluded it at that time. However, the committee’s report included a dissenting report which recommended the implementation of electronic voting. The dissenting committee members argued that the benefits of the system would outweigh the costs and noted that the cost of technology was falling. ³

In 2003 the Procedure Committee, in declining to recommend the introduction of electronic voting at that time, reported its belief that the general principles of electronic voting should be considered by and debated in the House before the technological alternatives and costs were examined in detail. ⁴

‘Proposed New and Permanent Parliament House for the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia’, Report of Joint Select Committee , PP 32 (1970) 30.

Electronic voting: report of inspection of equipment used in the Parliaments of Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the United States of America and in the European Parliament building in Brussels, October/November 1993 . Misc. Paper 7743.

Standing Committee on Procedure, Conduct of divisions , PP 290 (1996) 5, 16.

Standing Committee on Procedure, Review of the conduct of divisions . PP 163 (2003) 6-9.