General News
25 June, 2025
VEC must do more to prevent ballot shortages, committee finds
THE Victorian Electoral Commission has been urged to do more to prevent ballot shortages after three local polling booths ran out at the last state election.
At the 2022 election, Stawell West, Great Western and Concongella polling booths all ran out of voting papers.
The mishap was the subject of a Victorian parliamentary inquiry which has urged the VEC to take steps to prevent a similar situation reoccurring.
Two Stawell resident appeared before the Electoral Matters Committee inquiry – Chris Anderson, a member of the National Party and Veronica Monaghan, a member of the ALP.
Mr Anderson said the election process was unprofessional and inconvenient.
“I found the last election to be the most unprofessionally organised in regard to pre-poll and the total mess with the lack of ballot papers,” he said.
His comments were echoed by Ms Monaghan, whose husband Mick was the Labor candidate at the 2022 election.
“I am not trying to drastically change the electoral laws, just pointing out how inept the VEC is. By far the most serious concerns are the lack of ballot papers and the lack of trained staff,” she said.
“How can the VEC truthfully say that no voter was turned away and a very limited number of voting centres ran short?”
The Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee has called on the Victorian Electoral Commission to do more to prevent ballot shortages at future elections.
After the ballot shortage issues were raised by the Electoral Matters Committee and a further investigation was conducted, the VEC found that at least 166 people missed out on voting because of ballot paper shortages.
Although the VEC provided information on these matters to the committee on request, the VEC chose not to discuss them in its report to Parliament on the 2022 election.
In its report to the parliament, the Committee considers that these events represent serious errors by the VEC in relation to running the election, communicating to the public and being transparent with the Parliament.
The VEC has committed to multiple actions to reduce the risk of ballot paper shortages at future elections.
In its report, the committee found the full extent and impact of ballot paper shortages at the 2022 Victorian state election is still unclear.
The committee has recommended improved data collection at future elections so the VEC can track and report on any shortages and the committee can ensure the VEC effectively responds to the problem.
The committee found implementing electronic roll mark-off at all voting centres would reduce the likelihood of voting centres running out of ballot papers, would make multiple voting more difficult and may assist with managing queuing times.
The VEC has indicated it intends to implement this gradually across future elections. In a statement to the Stawell Times-News, the VEC has indicated it will do better.
“We know that some voting centres were affected by ballot paper shortages on election day and some voters were unable to vote because of those shortages.
While the number of voters who were affected was small (166 across 88 districts) and could not have affected the result, every vote counts and every Victorian who is eligible to vote must be able to do so.
“The single most important lesson is that we must always ensure that every eligible voter is able to cast their vote at any time during the election period from any voting centre in Victoria.
“We have conducted a full review of the issue and identified the lessons and operational changes that we have committed to ahead of the 2026 state election,” the statement said.
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