Voters would be required to prove their identity before casting a ballot under changes recommended by a federal parliamentary committee on electoral reform.
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It has also urged that the traditional polling booth pencil be scrapped in favour of pens to guard against vote tampering.
In its final report, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters chose to make no findings on the politically explosive issue of preferences and the group voting ticket – the current system which delivered the balance of power to micro parties.
Crossbenchers, excluding Nick Xenophon, have threatened to turn on the Abbott government if it takes up proposals by the Greens and Senator Xenophon that would all but rule out micro parties winning a seat in Parliament in future.
Among its other recommendations, the committee urged that state officers of the Australian Electoral Commission be made to reapply for their jobs as a way to improve staff quality and that the AEC take steps to improve its internal culture.
The committee highlighted the loss of 1370 ballot papers in Western Australia, which led to voters in that state having to return to the polls, as "the greatest failure in the history of the Australian Electoral Commission". Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn resigned.
More broadly, the committee is concerned about voter fraud. At the 2013 federal election, three separate voters in NSW were recorded by the AEC as having their names marked off 15, 12 and nine times respectively.
Any system that allows this, whether discovered or not, is flawed," said Liberal MP Tony Smith, chairman of the committee. He said there was an "unacceptable vulnerability" in the current system.
Similar to a trial in Queensland, voters would have to produce one of a number of forms of identification, including driver's licence, passport, Medicare card, pensioner concession card, utilities bill, bank letter or rates notice.
Of 27 countries with compulsory voting, only Australia does not require any identification check prior to voting. And of those 27, the vast majority require a national ID card to be produced.
Before election day, voters would also have to acknowledge that their details are correct on the roll once the current automatic enrolment system is alerted to a change in address.
In a dissenting report, Labor committee members Alan Griffin, Gary Gray, Senator Chris Ketter and Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said they were not convinced that the direct enrolment system, introduced in late 2012, had been given enough time to be proved to justify changes.
The committee's recommendations could prove a boon for stationery suppliers. "Pencils may be better in a small number of exceptional circumstances, but in the Committee's view, the operational norm should be for pens to be provided," it said.
While it did not take on the crossbench, the committee has urged consideration of party logos on the ballot paper. The Liberal Party has complained of suspected voter confusion with the Liberal Democratic Party of Senator David Leyonhjelm who drew the lucky "donkey vote" column at the 2013 election.
The committee considered the broadcast media "blackout" that comes into effect 48 hours before election day but did not recommend any changes before the 2015 election.
