‘Completely inadequate’: WA’s 2025 election issues laid bare

Some voters waited as long as three hours at polling booths across Western Australia during March’s state election, while others could not vote at all as ballot papers ran out, an inquiry has revealed.

First announced in April after “considerable criticism” and led by former WA Governor Malcolm McCusker, the inquiry looked into the reported issues from both members of the public and those working for the WA Electoral Commission.

McCusker was joined by representatives from Labor, Liberals, the Greens and the Nationals to “ensure fair, impartial and mutually supported outcomes”, with the inquiry’s findings from more than 150 submissions tabled in parliament on Tuesday.

“Major criticisms ... were long queues at a number of polling places, excessively long waiting times to cast a vote, and the time that it took to complete the final count for the Legislative Council,” the final report read.

The Phoenix Polling Place in Bibra Lake and another location in Beaconsfield both recorded wait times of up to three hours, with the WAEC employing thousands fewer staff than needed.

The inquiry found that the WAEC had originally calculated it would need 10,165 temporary election workers, with 7900 of those needed at polling places.

But Treasury had provided a sum “significantly less” than the full amount of funds sought by the WAEC, which saw it cut costs.

To remain within the budget, WAEC requested only 7113 temporary workers, and only 5276 to work on election day – 2624 fewer than it had estimated would be needed, and “completely inadequate” according to the report.

The recruitment and training of election workers was also outsourced to a private contractor – something that should be “reconsidered”, with the contract made with PersolKelly costing taxpayers up to $86 million.

The inquiry also found it was assumed that the number of people attending polling places in person would be much lower and more would opt for early polling or postal voting.

That was because 2021 pandemic data was used to predict the numbers, leading to an issue with some polling places running out of ballot papers.

One person, who volunteered during the election, said they could not understand how so many booths ran out.

“People had their names marked off without voting. People were turned away. People had to fill out hand-drawn make-do ballot papers,” they wrote in their submission.

“Many people did not get to cast their votes. Yet on the other hand, if we don’t, we get fined. What a big mess, this election has not given us accurate results.”

Opposition electoral affairs spokesman Shane Love said the report detailed the “litany of failures in the lead up to and the running of” the election, and renewed his calls for the electoral commissioner to be removed.

“The alarm bells were ringing loud and clear inside the WAEC, but leadership simply wasn’t listening,” Love said.

“Warning about inadequate funding, chronic understaffing, and a poor internal culture were ignored until it was too late, and it was WA voters who were left to pay the price.”

Love questioned WA Premier Roger Cook over the report in parliament on Tuesday, asking why the WAEC had been “shortchanged”.

Cook said the 2017 election had cost about $18.5 million, and the 2021 election $26.3 million, but the 2025 election had cost $44.7 million.

“Let’s stop this nonsense about the WAEC was somehow shortchanged and undercut in relation to its funding – it’s not true,” he said.

“The tradition for long time has been that the Electoral Commission spends what they need to spend in relation to elections, and ultimately, they work with the Department of Treasury to ensure they have the funding to cover the elections.”

The inquiry asked what changes should be made by the WA Electoral Commission to improve on the planning and delivery of future elections, and made 24 recommendations.

The state government has agreed to support 23 “in principle”, but only “noted” McCusker’s recommendation for legislative changes to ensure the WAEC had a statutory right to draw down on funds as needed.

WA Greens democracy spokesman Tim Clifford said the state’s “democratic institutions and our elections should not be privatised”, and said it was disappointing it had taken the government so long to release the report publicly.

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