Terms of use

Last updated: 14 July 2026

1. About these terms

These Terms of Use govern your access to and use of how2vote, including the website, comparison results and any voting plan you create using the service (the Service).

The Service is operated by General Consulting Services Pty Ltd as trustee for the Australian Business Trust, trading as National Digital (ABN 13 744 838 758) (National Digital, we, us or our).

By using the Service, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. What the Service does

The Service is a free, independent information tool. It compares answers you choose to provide with selected historical parliamentary voting records using the methodology published on the How it works page.

The Service may show an alignment percentage or other comparison information for parties, parliamentary members or candidates. These results are based on historical public records and methodological choices. They are not predictions of future conduct and are not a complete assessment of any party, candidate or policy.

3. You create your own voting plan

The Service does not choose, pre-fill, rank or recommend a preference order for you.

Candidate and group names are presented in the official ballot order for the relevant election. Match information may be displayed beside them, but a higher match does not mean that you should give that candidate or group a higher preference.

You must actively choose each preference in your voting plan. The order is yours alone. National Digital does not adopt, endorse or recommend the order you select.

A voting plan is not a ballot paper and does not cast a vote. You must complete the official ballot paper yourself.

4. Federal elections only

Unless we clearly state otherwise, the Service is designed only for Australian federal elections conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

Voting systems and authorisation rules differ between federal, state, territory and local government elections. Do not use the Service for another election unless the Service expressly identifies that election as supported.

5. Check official information before voting

You are responsible for checking:

that you have selected the correct electorate and state or territory;
the candidates, groups and ballot order shown on your actual ballot paper;
the current AEC instructions for completing a formal vote; and
every preference you copy from your voting plan.

Candidate nominations, affiliations, ballot order, voting instructions and other election information may change or may be corrected after information is first published.

The Service may provide mechanical prompts about missing, repeated or incomplete preference numbers. Any prompt is a convenience only and is not a legal determination that your ballot will be formal.

If the Service conflicts with your ballot paper or current AEC information, follow the ballot paper and AEC information.

6. No AEC, party or candidate endorsement

The Service is not produced, approved, registered or endorsed by the AEC, any political party or any candidate.

The Service is not an official voting service, electoral enrolment service or ballot paper. National Digital does not submit, receive or count votes.

7. Methodology and editorial judgement

We use a published and versioned methodology, but the Service is not free from judgement. Choices about which issues to include, how to describe a parliamentary division, how to group records, how to treat parties and independents, and how to calculate alignment involve editorial and methodological decisions.

We aim to apply the stated methodology consistently and without favouring a party or candidate. We do not warrant that the methodology is neutral, complete or the only reasonable way to interpret the public record.

A party-level historical record may be shown beside a current candidate who has no personal parliamentary voting record. That information describes the historical record attributed to the party, not the candidate's personal views, promises or future conduct.

8. Sources and accuracy

Parliamentary voting information is sourced principally from They Vote For You, a project of the OpenAustralia Foundation. Candidate and election information may be sourced from the AEC and other identified public sources.

We use reasonable care to maintain the Service, but errors can arise from:

source data, delayed updates or later corrections;
our selection, interpretation, mapping, calculations or software;
candidate, party, electorate or ballot-order changes;
incomplete records, absences, paired votes or procedural divisions;
attributing a party's historical record to a current candidate; or
the way information is displayed, downloaded, printed, shared or copied.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we do not warrant that the Service, any source data, alignment result or voting plan is complete, current, accurate, available, secure or free from error.

Please report suspected errors promptly through the contact page. We may correct, suspend, withdraw or replace any content or output without notice.

9. Information only, not advice

The Service provides general information only. It is not legal, electoral, political, financial or other professional advice.

Your political views, voting decisions and preferences are personal decisions. You should consider the matters that are important to you and make your own enquiries.

10. Sharing a voting plan

You may save, print or share a voting plan that you created for your personal use, provided that you do not:

remove or obscure the statement that the preference order was selected by the user;
remove or obscure any electoral authorisation, accuracy notice, data date or methodology version;
alter the output in a way that falsely attributes a recommendation or statement to National Digital;
represent the output as official AEC, party or candidate material; or
use it unlawfully or to mislead another person about how to cast a valid vote.

A person who receives a shared plan can see the preferences and other information encoded in it. Only share it with people you choose.

11. Acceptable use

You must not:

interfere with, disrupt, overload, probe or circumvent the Service or its security;
use automated means in a way that materially impairs the Service;
submit spam, malicious content or knowingly false error reports;
use the Service to impersonate another person or organisation;
remove required attribution, licensing or authorisation information;
redistribute an altered output as though it were generated by the Service; or
use the Service in breach of electoral, privacy, intellectual property or other applicable law.

We may restrict or block use that we reasonably consider unsafe, unlawful or harmful to the Service or others.

12. Intellectual property and open licences

Unless otherwise stated, National Digital owns or licenses the Service's design, original content and software.

The application source code is made available under the GNU Affero General Public License v3. The compiled parliamentary vote dataset is made available under the Open Database Licence and includes attribution to They Vote For You and the OpenAustralia Foundation.

Those licences apply to the materials they cover. They do not grant a right to use National Digital's trade marks, imply endorsement, remove electoral authorisation requirements, or publish misleading modified outputs.

13. Third-party services and links

The Service relies on third-party data, infrastructure and services. Third-party sites and services are governed by their own terms and privacy practices.

We are not responsible for third-party content, availability, security or acts and omissions, except to the extent liability cannot lawfully be excluded.

14. Availability and changes

We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of the Service at any time, including during an election period, for maintenance, security, legal compliance, data correction or operational reasons.

We do not promise that the Service or a saved or shared plan will remain available. Keep any information you need and check it again before voting.

15. Consumer rights

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right, remedy or liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified, including under the Australian Consumer Law.

Where a non-excludable guarantee applies and the law permits us to limit the remedy, our liability is limited, at our option, to supplying the relevant service again or paying the cost of having the service supplied again.

16. Exclusion and limitation of liability

Subject to section 15 and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

the Service is supplied on an as-is and as-available basis;
we exclude all implied warranties, representations and conditions;
we are not liable for indirect, consequential, special or economic loss, loss of opportunity, loss of data, reputational loss, or any electoral or political outcome;
we are not liable because a ballot is informal, a preference is copied incorrectly, information is incomplete or inaccurate, or the Service is unavailable; and
our total aggregate liability arising out of or connected with the Service is limited to the greater of AUD 100 and the amount you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to liability.

These limits apply regardless of the legal basis of the claim, including contract, negligence, statute or otherwise.

17. Responsibility for unlawful misuse

You are responsible for loss reasonably suffered by us as a direct result of your deliberate unlawful use of the Service, your deliberate removal of a required authorisation, or your knowing publication of a materially altered output as though it were an unaltered National Digital output.

This section does not require a consumer to compensate us for loss caused by our own negligence, breach or unlawful conduct.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the Service, law or election requirements change. The current version will be published on this page with its effective date.

Material changes will apply prospectively. Your continued use after the effective date of an update constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

19. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. The courts of Queensland and courts entitled to hear appeals from them have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

20. Contact

Questions, complaints and error reports can be sent to [email protected] or submitted through the contact page.

National Digital
ABN 13 744 838 758
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia