The Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum is tomorrow signalling an end of months of campaigning.
When voters line up at the thousand polling places across the country there are some key things to know.
Australian Electoral Commission Spokesperson, Evan Ekin-Smyth has given NIRS News the rundown.
“Polling places are open from 8am to 6pm (local time) on referendum day.
You can expect much the same experience as you’d get at an election, you’ll have friendly staff of course, you might have some campaigners you can talk to or not, it’s entirely up to you.
And then you walk inside, you receive a single ballot paper, and you’ve got to either write yes or no on that ballot paper.”
Today is also the final day you can pre poll with voting booths closing at 6pm tonight.
Early voting for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum is ahead of any national vote of its kind.
Mr Ekin-Smyth says more voters have pre polled than ever before.
“We’ve had more than 4.5 million people cast a pre poll vote already, we expect today to be one of the biggest pre-polling days in the nation’s history.”
And if you’re planning on wearing clothing representing either the ‘No’ Campaign or ‘Yes’ campaign at a polling station you might want to reconsider.
Mr Ekin-Smyth says it might break AEC guidelines.
“The law around polling places is that you can’t actively campaign inside a polling place or within six meters of the entrance of a polling place.
Now if you wear a shirt, be it a ‘Yes’ campaign shirt or a ‘No’ campaign hat, or whatever it might be,.
If you wear it into a polling place you absolutely have to make sure you aren’t seen actively campaigning while wearing that material.
You can wear it, you can cast your vote, and then go outside again, but if your looking like your campaigning while in a polling place it could be an issue.”
He says campaigning can include gesturing to the campaign material or openly speaking about why you are voting a particular way.
Earlier this week, a Yagera/Bundjulung Elder who was wearing a Yes shirt was told to leave a polling station at Ipswich, west of Brisbane.
He was told to come back and vote after he’d changed his t-shirt.
Mr Ekin-Smyth says once polls close it may take some time until the country knows the outcome.
“We work really hard once polls close at 6pm to count the votes as quickly as we can.
Whether or not we get a result on the night will entirely depend on how close the margin is.
If it is a particularly close result, we’ll be asking for patience.”
Image Credit AEC Via Flickr
