Planning is ramping up for the nation's biggest and most complex peace-time event.
The 4.5 million pencils that will be used by Australian Electoral Commission staff for the federal election would stretch from the bottom to the top of Tasmania if laid out.
At a warehouse in Queanbeyan, which borders the ACT, preparations for the upcoming election are under way.
It is one of hundreds of facilities being used for logistics by the electoral commission, and is a preparation area for the territory's three federal electorates.
Electoral workers are storing and gathering materials at the warehouse, to be sent out to early voting centres once the election is called by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Australian Electoral Commission spokesman Evan Ekin-Smyth said the secure warehouses were also used to sort and store ballot papers - and to count votes.
"Organising the federal election is an enormous logistical undertaking - the biggest and most complex peace-time event in the country," he said.
"Thousands of forms, pieces of staff identification and procedural arrangements underpin a secure, complex operation."
More than 100,000 people will be hired as temporary workers by the commission over a period before, during, and after polling day.
They will staff more than 500 early voting centres, and more than 7000 polling places.
Eight hundred and fifty-thousand security seals and forms with 26,000 rolls of tamper proof tape will bolster the election's integrity.
More than 60,000 litres of hand sanitiser and 34,000 bottles of surface spray will be among the measures in place to keep the event COVID safe.
The body will also deploy 150,000 voting screens, 70,000 ballot boxes, 10.000 recycling bins - and many tables and chairs.
When election day is over, about 40,000 ballot transport containers will travel along individual routes to be counted and verified.
Each container is registered with a unique barcode to ensure it's properly tracked by the commission.
