At the 2013 general election there was concern over the particularly high rate of informality across a number Legislative Assembly districts. Given the system of full preferential voting and tight formality rules, the state-wide average for the Legislative Assembly was 6%. Some seats in the Perth metropolitan area with high concentrations of new citizens and culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) electors recorded rates approaching 10%.
As a result a range of initiatives and changes were implemented for the 2017 election in an effort to improve the situation.
Some of these initiatives had an elector education focus (particularly in districts with higher than average rates of informality), while others concentrated on improving ballot paper design, voting instructions and signage, or enhancing the available support at polling locations.
As a result of these initiatives there has been a significant fall in the state-wide average informality rate for the Legislative Assembly from 6% to 4.5%. Those districts which recorded rates close to 10% in 2013 typically experienced falls of between 20 – 30% in their rate of informality.
The 2017 state-wide informality rate for the Legislative Council was also marginally lower than in 2013 at 2.74%.