Federal elections was held on Saturday, 1 December 2012 for members of the 57thCygnian Congress. The centre-right National Party of Cygnia, under the leadership of Tony Abbott, defeated the incumbent centre-left Labour government led by Julia Gillard by a 23-seat two-party swing. Labour had been in government since January 2009. In this election, all 300 seats in the House of Representatives and 43 of the 86 seats in the Senate were contested.
The proclamation dissolving the House of Representatives and formally beginning the election cycle had been issued by PresidentQuentin Bryce on 2 November 2012. The writs of election were subsequently issued by the President for the election of members of the House of Representatives and by the State Governors for the senators from each state.
More than 90 million Cygnians were enrolled to vote at the time of the election. Cygnia has compulsory voting (since 1855) and uses preferential ballot in single-member seats for the House of Representatives and single transferable vote with optional group voting tickets in the proportionally represented Senate. The election was conducted by the Cygnian Electoral Commission (CEC).
A special half-Senate election was conducted on 5 April 2013 in Carolina as a result of 1,375 lost ballot papers.
