Commissioner's review
The Acting Electoral Commissioner, Jeff Pope, reflects on the year.
In 2024–25, the AEC kept running successful electoral events. At the same time, we ran a large transformation program. We also faced a regulatory reform agenda that kept changing.
Successful delivery of the 2025 federal election
The 2025 federal election was the largest in Australia's history. It was also our most complex so far. It capped over a decade of comprehensive electoral reform. It also capped nearly 20 years of work to modernise the electoral roll. It was complex, but the AEC delivered a trusted event with high integrity. We returned the writs ahead of schedule.
A record 98.1% of eligible Australians enrolled to vote in this election. That is 870,000 more people than at the 2022 federal election. To lift voter turnout, we also offered more mobile and remote polling services. We did more community engagement work too.
We could not do this work without our highly capable and committed workforce. During the election period it grew from about 1,000 employees to over 100,000 positions. These positions included Australian Public Service (APS) employees, the temporary election workforce and labour hire.
We also stepped up our work against misinformation and disinformation. We did this in our operations, in our electoral integrity work and in how we manage our reputation. This work included the Electoral Integrity Assurance Taskforce, which brings several agencies together. It also included our Disinformation Register and our flagship Stop and Consider campaign.
This year, the AEC released a dedicated report on delivering a federal election. Our 2025 Federal Election Report adds to the detail in this annual report. I encourage you to read it for a closer look at this recent election.
Other core activities
In addition to delivering federal elections, the AEC oversees industrial elections. These choose the office holders of more than 90 registered organisations. Each one needs a high level of technical skill. It also needs support tailored to that organisation's own rules. Our expert staff ran over 250 industrial elections in 2024–25.
We also helped run the Torres Strait Regional Authority election. We sent staff from many parts of the AEC to deliver this election successfully and to coordinate the complex logistics needed across many locations.
Our ongoing operational work would not be possible without the AEC's experienced enabling services teams. These teams have a broad technical remit. They provide skilled and reliable corporate and governance functions. This makes our operations stronger and supports everything we do across the agency.
Leading global best practice
The AEC kept up its commitment to supporting democracy. We share high quality ways of managing elections with our counterparts around the world. We do this in 4 ways:
- We exchange staff.
- We run technical assistance programs.
- We take part in high-level forums.
- We host delegations from other countries.
We have built strong relationships over the last 3 decades. This year we built on them to deliver foundational election training. We did this through our Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections workshops. We also gave critical election support across the Indo-Pacific region. This included Vanuatu's 2025 election.
Another notable highlight was our work to upgrade our Generic Voter Registration System software. We did this for countries in the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand Electoral Administrators network. The software will give their voter registration work more robustness, more autonomy and modern functions.
Our ongoing transformation and modernisation
In 2024–25, the AEC successfully completed Tranche 1 of the Indigo Program. Indigo is our large transformation program, and it runs over several years. It is modernising our core election management systems.
Tranche 1 brought in:
- a suite of new information technology systems to improve the management of our temporary election workforce
- the AEC Command Centre, which supported the 2025 federal election, the 2022 federal election and the 2023 referendum
- a new contact centre system.
We also keep improving how we work. As part of this, we expanded the technology in polling places. We used more electronic certified lists. This gave voters a more efficient and accurate voting service.
In 2025–26 and beyond, we will keep modernising other key election management systems. This will help the AEC keep the integrity of Australia's electoral process.
Looking ahead, we will also focus on regulatory reform. The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2025 is the biggest change to funding and disclosure in nearly 40 years. Our role as a regulator will grow a great deal. To support this, we will refine the processes, resourcing, tools and systems that the AEC and our stakeholders use.
These changes will keep Australia at the forefront of electoral integrity worldwide. They will also modernise our operations as a sophisticated regulator that works at scale.
Education and community engagement remain a key priority. Their aim is to get more people taking part in elections. We will keep looking for ways to make better use of technology. We want our education work to be as accessible, inclusive and engaging as possible.
Finally, we will weigh up and apply the lessons learnt from the 2025 federal election. This keeps our commitment to be a leader in world-class, best practice election management.
Overview of the AEC
This section covers the AEC's role, its functions and how it is organised.
Role and purpose
The AEC is the Australian Government's independent electoral body.
Our purpose, as set out in the AEC Corporate Plan 2024–25, is to:
Maintain an impartial and independent electoral system for eligible voters through active electoral roll management, efficient delivery of polling services, and targeted education and public awareness programs.
Outcome and program
Our purpose lines up directly with our intended outcome. The outcome is set out in the AEC Portfolio Budget Statements. We are funded to deliver our outcome through one program:
1.1 To deliver electoral events.
Functions
In line with the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Electoral Act) and the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984 (Referendum Act), we achieve our purpose by:
- running successful electoral events, including:
- federal elections, by-elections and referendums
- industrial elections and ballots
- maintaining the Commonwealth Electoral Roll and making sure people have confidence in it
- regulating:
- political party registrations
- financial disclosure
- the authorising of electoral communications
- the rules on compulsory and multiple voting
- supporting electoral redistributions
- managing industrial elections for office holders in organisations registered with the Fair Work Commission
- managing protected action ballots related to enterprise agreement negotiations
- doing public awareness work.
We also provide a range of electoral information and education programs. We run them in Australia and in support of Australia's national interests. They include targeted education programs. These help people better understand electoral processes.
Organisational structure
The AEC is a non-corporate Commonwealth entity under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. It is also an independent statutory authority. It was set up under the Electoral Act.
Our agency has:
- a national office in Canberra
- state and territory offices
- divisional offices.
The Electoral Commissioner is appointed under the Electoral Act. The Commissioner is responsible for managing and running the AEC. Our Executive Leadership Team consists of:
- the Electoral Commissioner
- the Deputy Electoral Commissioner
- 4 First Assistant Commissioners.
Section 6 of the Electoral Act also sets up a 3-person Commission. The Commission has exclusive powers. These cover, in particular:
- electoral redistributions
- political party registration
- funding and disclosure.
At 30 June 2025, the members of the Commission were:
- the Hon Susan Kenny AM KC, Chairperson
- Dr David Gruen AO, Australian Statistician and non-judicial member
- Mr Jeff Pope APM, Acting Electoral Commissioner.
Figure 1 shows our senior executive and their responsibilities at 30 June 2025. It also shows the members of the Commission. Table 1, inside Figure 1, lists the same people. It gives each position, who holds it, the group, division or body, and whether the person is acting.
| Position | Name | Group, division or body | Acting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electoral Commissioner | Jeff Pope | None: drawn as a band above all 5 group cards | Yes |
| Deputy Electoral Commissioner and National Election Manager | Kath Gleeson | None: drawn as a band above 4 of the 5 group cards | Yes |
| First Assistant Commissioner | Angus Kirkwood | Service Delivery Group | No |
| First Assistant Commissioner and National Incident Manager | Michael Lynch | Electoral Integrity and Operations Group | No |
| First Assistant Commissioner and Senior Responsible Officer, Indigo Program | Thomas Ryan | Enterprise Transformation Group | No |
| First Assistant Commissioner | Tania Wilson | Chief Information Officer Division, drawn inside the Enterprise Transformation Group | No |
| First Assistant Commissioner | Karen Redhead | Enterprise Strategy and Transformation Division, drawn inside the Enterprise Transformation Group | Yes |
| First Assistant Commissioner | Rachael Spalding | Enabling and Regulation Group | No |
| First Assistant Commissioner and Senior Responsible Officer | Rhianne Jory | Funding and Disclosure Reform Program, drawn outside the Deputy Electoral Commissioner band, under the Electoral Commissioner band | No |
| Chairperson | the Hon Justice Susan Kenny AM KC | The Commission | No |
| Electoral Commissioner | Mr Jeff Pope APM | The Commission | Yes |
| Non-judicial member | Dr David Gruen AO, Australian Statistician | The Commission | No |
Notes: "Acting" marks an acting arrangement, shown by an asterisk in the source. The source draws the Electoral Commissioner as a band above all 5 group cards. It draws the Deputy Electoral Commissioner as a band above 4 of them. The Funding and Disclosure Reform Program card sits outside that band, under the Electoral Commissioner band, with a divider at its edge. It draws the 2 divisions inside the Enterprise Transformation Group card. The source sets the title line "Deputy Electoral Commissioner*" and the line "National Election Manager Kath Gleeson" in one band. Table 1 reads them as one position held by Kath Gleeson. The source draws no line from one box to another, so neither this figure nor Table 1 says who reports to whom. Source: Figure 1, Australian Electoral Commission Annual Report 2024–25, printed page 8.