AEC ‘closely monitoring’ whether to roll out potential security measures ahead of election

The Australian Electoral Commission says it is alive to the possibility of beefing up election-day security, amid deteriorating social cohesion.

In a briefing with media on Friday, Commissioner Jeff Pope confirmed the agency was “very closely monitoring” the domestic environment and were in discussions with police and security agencies about the possibility of security measures.

While the increasing incidences of violent anti-Semitism and other societal issues haven’t resulted in the AEC making “any demonstrable changes yet”, Mr Pope said he was alive to the possibility.

“Through that (Electoral Integrity Assurance) taskforce and through our relationship with the Australian Federal Police in particular, and also the state and territory police forces … we work closely with them in the sharing of information and intelligence between agencies, so we’re monitoring it very closely,” he said.

“We have not made any demonstrable changes yet, hopefully we don’t have to.

“For me, it would be incredibly sad day for Australia if we have to put some form of security at a polling place. I hope we never see that.

“We’re doing everything possible with the security agencies that that is not required.”

We’re doing this to ourselves … which is one of the sort of sad things about how this thing’s playing out.

The AEC will staff around 7000 polling centres on election day — due by May 17 — and will hire more than 100,000 staff to carry out the country’s largest peace-time statistical operation.

The AEC is also preparing to deal with mis- and dis-information relating to electoral processes, and is alive to conspiracy theories.

As of the end of December, 17.93 million Australians were enrolled to vote — about 97.8 per cent of the total eligible population.

The AEC is also preparing to combat mis- and disinformation in the lead-up to the election, but only has remit to combat pieces that relate to the electoral process.

Mr Pope said “sovereign citizens, conspiracy theorists and keyboard warriors” are among the domestic threats being monitored.

“We’re doing this to ourselves … which is one of the sort of sad things about how this thing’s playing out,” Mr Pope said.

“We’re seeing sovereign citizens and conspiracy theorists and keyboard warriors, who don’t want to reveal their identity. They do want to stir the pot and cause problems.”

The Government’s Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce earlier this month released its election security overview, detailing cybersecurity, foreign interference, protest and terrorism activity, and mis- and dis-information as potential threats to election day.

The AEC launched a new voter information campaign on Friday, including an advertising campaign aimed at educating voters to spot misleading information, a disinformation register, and resources to identify misinformation tactics like deepfakes.