NSW Electoral Commission’s IT wishlist for the state budget includes a $12.6 million request for cyber security operating costs, and permission to redirect $8.3 million into “critical systems” maintenance ahead of the next state election.
The commission provided an update of its IT priorities, both in the lead-up to the 2027 state election and beyond, following an appearance at NSW budget estimates in late February.
For the next state budget in June, a key request is for costs to cover “ongoing maintenance” of cyber security posture, following an earlier “uplift”.
“The commission is seeking ongoing funding to maintain its uplift in its cyber security posture,” it said [pdf] in written responses to questions on notice.
“Funding to implement the uplift was previously received through the Digital Restart Fund but ongoing operating funding is required. Total operating expenditure in the first 5 years would be $12.6 million.”
The commission won the uplift funding back in 2022, after several unsuccessful attempts.
The uplift was intended to deliver urgent “fixes” to around 50 electoral systems.
In addition to seeking cyber security operational funding, the commission intends to ask the government for permission to reallocate some unspent funding allocated for “recent local government elections” into urgent IT systems works.
Electoral commissioner Rachel McCallum flagged this possibility [pdf] back in February, noting the money could be repurposed to “maintain our rather old legacy systems so that they are functioning as well as they can in the 2027 election.”
“The Electoral Commission has … recently re-assessed the urgent maintenance needs of its existing legacy systems ahead of the 2027 state election and is separately seeking approval to re-purpose other underspent but protected budget funding towards this work,” the commission said [pdf] in response to questions raised at the hearing.
“These critical systems include the count system, the nomination system, the ballot paper production system, election staffing systems, and the online funding and disclosure system.”
The commission was previously unsuccessful in getting funding for this work from the previous state budget.
Contingent on whether funding is forthcoming or not, the commission intends to make some additional limited digital investments in ballot scanning and electronic election-day mark-off of voters, the latter of which was recently trialled at last month’s byelection in Port Macquarie.
However, “broader improvements” would need to be pushed back to 2031 or 2032 “at the earliest”.
These improvements could include the adoption of “single sign-on for Electoral Commission systems used by candidates and other regulated participants”; and “consideration of artificial intelligence tools in the electoral context, to augment and improve the Electoral Commission’s service delivery and compliance activities.”
