19 November - Australian troops deployed overseas in the Middle East, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands are using the latest voting technology for the upcoming Federal election on 24 November.

A new secure electronic voting system is being used for the the first time as part of a trial by Defence and the Australian Electoral Commission, taking advantage of Defence's secure communication infrastructure that allows encrypted electronic voting data to be transmitted.

Baghdad-based soldier Signaller Tynan Garrett said the process only took him five minutes to vote. "Being only 22-years-old, I haven't voted much before, but the online system made the process easy to follow," he said. 

The Defence voting trial follows from a recommendation on electronic voting by the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, by reducing the logistical overhead of managing paper-based ballots in remote overseas operational locations.

20 November 2007
RTF soldiers vote in Federal election

Soldiers of the Reconstruction Task Force located in Oruzgan Province, southern Afghanistan are casting their votes electronically via computer for this year's Federal election.