As the date of the Voice to Parliament referendum nears, misinformation about the voting process has intensified. Here are some of the biggest debunked claims.
Changed to title to the one used in the article since it is less click-bait-y. Useful article that goes through some of the misinformation about the voting process
Absolutely blew me away both sides handing out "how to vote" pamphlets. For elections it makes more sense but to write a single word in a box is insane
maybe they should have said "to vote no, set your facebook status to:
I declare my referendum vote to be NO and this post is legal and binding with no need to vote at ALBO's FRAUD SITES"
Just thought I'd also point out how ridiculous it was that bigots made a big deal about the X or tick thing (it's like pensioners and plastic bags, all over again). The instructions are literally SO clear.
Do they think people are voting who can't understand those directions?
i walked past a no campaigner who looked genuinely offended because i just shook my head as i walked past him when he tried handing me pamphlets. he started to say something then caught himself.
If such a passive interaction was enough to set that guy off, hes really not fit to be handing out anything near a polling booth to be honest
In their defence, they probably do need how to vote cards, because I'm sure a lot of the No voters are probably struggling to understand the instructions
On the eve of the Voice to Parliament referendum, misleading and inaccurate information about the electoral voting process remains rife on social media, from misguided suggestions about voter identification and claims about the validity of ballot paper "ticks" and "crosses".
As fellow X users quickly pointed out, guidelines published by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) suggest the man's vote would likely be counted as informal by polling officials.
In another post to X last week and viewed more than 100,000 times, a user who had apparently enrolled as a postal voter claimed that the AEC had included Yes campaign material along with her ballot paper.
Debate around the AEC's stance on whether ticks and crosses would be counted as Yes and No votes respectively in the referendum was reignited this week as the Federal Court considered a legal challenge from the United Australia Party's Clive Palmer and Senator Ralph Babet.
Perhaps the most viral piece of problematic information to spread online in recent weeks regrettably came from the AEC itself, in the form of a post to X — viewed more than one million times on the platform — that lacked crucial context.
Other social media users — some with hundreds of thousands of followers — shared the AEC's original post alongside claims it proved the system was "easy to rig" and that "democracy is under attack".
The original article contains 1,233 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Can someone explain to me, a non-Australian, why the hell your ballot asks people to write yes or no?? Why not have two boxes, one that says “yes” and one that says “no” and have people make a mark in the box they want? Then all this nonsense about ticks and crosses wouldn’t matter. If someone marked both boxes their ballot would be invalidated. Easy peasy
Hey, just a little nudge, if you’re keen to chat about the Voice to Parliament, we’ve got this corker of a megathread where we can all have a good chinwag in one spot. But if you’re not up for that, no worries, it’s business as usual. Gotta keep things fair dinkum!