The focus at election time is often on the cost of the campaigns but how much does it actually cost to run a democratic election?
Around 17 million Australians are enrolled to vote on May 21, and it's up to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to give everyone across the country the opportunity to cast their ballot.
And the cost of that mammoth exercise isn't cheap.
AEC's spokesperson, Evan Ekin-Smyth told ABC RN's The Money that the 2022 federal election will cost taxpayers "somewhere around that magic half a billion dollar mark".
That's considerably more than the 2019 election that came in at $372 million.
Why does it cost so much?
Mr Ekin-Smyth puts the additional cost down to hosting a federal election during a pandemic, along with the impacts of recent flooding events in NSW and Queensland.
More than 73,000 litres of hand sanitiser, 150,000 voting screens and 10,000 recycling bins are just a few of the essential supplies that have been procured for this year's election.
Yet it is the cost of employees that Mr Ekin-Smyth says are the greatest expense.
At the last federal election, around a third of the $372 million went on wages for 130,000 people.
Given the scale of this recruitment, the federal election is considered one of the country's biggest temporary hires. The labour constitutes one of "Australia's biggest workforces, albeit for a very short period of time."
"It shows you just how many people go into … making a federal election tick," Mr Ekin-Smyth says.
Reimbursement for signs and how-to-vote cards
There's another major yet little known election cost.
According to the AEC website, "after each federal election or by-election, the AEC distributes money to eligible political parties, candidates and Senate groups to reimburse them for electoral expenditure".
Mr Ekin-Smyth explains that to be eligible to receive "election funding", political parties or candidates need to have received at least four per cent of first preference votes.
In the past, they were entitled to a flat rate.
But Mr Ekin-Smyth says it's become a system of reimbursement more recently.
"People have to prove that they've spent that amount on electoral expenditure [such as on] signs and how-to-vote cards," he says.
Currently for eligible political parties and candidates, they are entitled to $2.91 for every primary vote they receive, plus an automatic payment of $10,656.
"Not many people are super aware of it but we do make that payment," Mr Ekin-Smyth says.
"It's all on our transparency register on our website after the election as well."
The funding reimbursement to parties and candidates after the 2019 election accounted for $70 million, all paid for by the taxpayer.
'Very difficult planning exercise'
The unofficial election campaign ran for months before Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the official election date.
So does the length of the official campaign period affect the overall cost of conducting the election?
According to Mr Ekin-Smyth, "it doesn't have too much of an impact".
Instead the real logistical difficulty comes when the AEC needs "to be ready to go" whenever the federal election is called.
For this election, that could have been as early as August 2021.
"So we've got to make rolling decisions about what venues we bring on board and what materials we get ready," he says. "There's not enough paper to run a federal election if we haven't got it ready."
Not dissimilar to political analysts, the AEC closely monitors the political landscape for indications of a potential election date so they can make decisions accordingly.
"That will cost money and so those sorts of expenses do add up," Mr Ekin-Smyth says.
"So it's a very, very difficult planning exercise, that's for sure."
When do you start planning for the next one?
So come May 22, 2022, as Australians come to terms with the election outcome, what's next for the AEC?
"It's the typical barbecue question ... 'When do you start planning for the next one?'" says Mr Ekin-Smyth.
His response is usually blunt: "It's the day after."
The AEC starts looking ahead to the next election immediately, from maintaining the electoral roll, redrawing boundaries in particular states and territories, and planning for any potential by-elections.
"It is an immense task to make sure that we have all the contracts in place, all the services ready to roll out, the people on a register ready to go," he says.
"So it's a long lead time planning and we've got to make sure we're ready to go on any given date."
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