Elections ACT could begin redistributing Canberra's electoral boundaries as early as October for the 2020 election, with the northernmost electorate of Yerrabi seeing huge gains in the numbers of voters since the territory last went to the polls in 2016.
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Budget papers reveal redrawing the ACT's electoral boundaries is one of the electoral commission's top priorities this coming financial year.
About 7000 more people have enrolled to vote in the ACT since 2016, with nearly 3800 of those new voters in Yerrabi.
The Woden and Weston Creek seat of Murrumbidgee also increased in size by another 1500 voters, likely due to more people moving into the Molonglo Valley.
Numbers of voters in other electorates have remained stable. An extra 1100 people have moved into the central Canberra seat of Kurrajong, around 450 in the Tuggeranong seat of Brindabella and only 183 in the Belconnen electorate of Ginninderra.
In preparation for the October 17 2020 election, deputy electoral commissioner Ro Spence said a redistribution committee must be set up "as soon as practicable" after October 20 this year.
That's because according to law, the redrawing of ACT Legislative Assembly electorates must begin as soon as possible after the third Saturday in October, two years before the next general election is due.
"The process typically takes about six months, however the 2014-15 redistribution process, in which the ACT was divided into five electorates for the first time didn’t complete until August 2015, approximately 10 months after it commenced," Mr Spence said.
Until then, there is no indication of what the redistribution will look like, or which party will benefit from it.
Labor polled the strongest in Canberra's northernmost electorates in the 2016 territory election (43.9 per cent of first preference votes in Yerrabi, 41.4 per cent in Ginninderra and 38.5 per cent in Kurrajong), while the Liberals dominated the south (41.9 per cent of first preference votes in Brindabella and 42.8 per cent in Murrumbidgee).
The Greens, who hold the balance of power in the ACT's parliament, had their strongest results in the centre Canberra seat of Kurrajong (18.8 per cent of first preference votes).
The electoral commission will also upgrade security on its electronic voting system, according to budget papers.
The commission is earmarked to get $196,000 in capital works funding this financial year and will receive another $150,000 in 2020-21/2021-22 to support electronic voting.
The ACT's electronic voting system was the first of its kind in Australia and Mr Spence said they've been making "incremental" changes to it since 2001.
"In preparation for the 2020 ACT Legislative Assembly election, the commission is planning to modernise the technology platforms on which [the electronic voting and counting system] is built," he said.
"This will include a review and upgrade of security protocols and hardware. This will again allow the commission to proactively manage and mitigate potential risks relating to integrity, data-security, reliability, hardware compatibility and the integrity and accuracy of election voting and counting data during the critical election period."
Blind and vision-impaired voters will also be able to phone in their vote for the first time, with the new system to incorporate phone and touchscreen functionality.
It came after blind voters said their right to secrecy was violated at the ballot box in 2016 after "overly helpful" polling officers read their votes aloud without permission.
Mr Spence said it was likely electronic voting will continue to be made available at all pre-poll centres during the 3 week pre-poll period and at those same centres on election day.
However he said the number of pre-poll centres available would largely depend on the ability to find suitable accommodation within Canberra’s business districts.
At the 2016 election there were pre-poll voting centres in Belconnen, Gungahlin, Tuggeranong, Woden, and two in Civic.
Around one-third. or 83,722 votes were cast at the pre-poll voting centres last election, up from one-quarter in 2012 and one-fifth in 2008.
Around 86 per cent of pre-poll votes were cast electronically, up from 82 per cent in 2012.
Mr Spence said it was likely the numbers of pre-poll and electronic votes would continue to trend upwards in 2020.
