With the largest ever number of Australians enrolled to vote and a national enrolment rate of 97 per cent¹, we also saw a large increase in early voting and an increase in turnout for the House of Representatives. At 91.9 per cent, turnout was nearly one per cent higher than at the 2016 federal election. The AEC implements one of the biggest and most comprehensive communication campaigns across federal government to encourage participation in federal elections. In 2019 more Australians were assisted by the AEC to participate than ever before.

In demonstrable and measurable ways, our administration of this event was highly successful. Initial indications from our voter survey (conducted at each federal election) indicate that there was a large increase in satisfaction in 2019 compared to 2016. For example, satisfaction with the overall voting experience increased from 87 percent in 2016 to 94 percent in 2019.

The improvements to polling place operations and queue management is a further example of our success in embracing new procedures to tackle complex problems. As a result of this and other factors, voter satisfaction with ‘the length of time you had to wait to vote’ increased from 78% in 2016 to 91% in 2019.