Referendum pre-polling has begun this week starting on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory where remote voter services have been set up so people in communities can cast their ballot in the Voice Referendum. For many people in these extremely isolated places, it's the only chance they'll get to have their say.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Pre-polling has begun across Australia with the remote voter service travelling thousands
00:07 of kilometres to remote communities to make sure everyone has their say in the voice referendum.
00:13 It's a massive logistical effort that has employed hundreds of people.
00:18 They're using barges, boats, helicopters and planes to reach even the smallest of communities.
00:24 In some places it'll be a table set up under a tree so that a community of just 10 people
00:30 can cast their ballot.
00:32 But we're here with Geoff Bloom from the Australian Electoral Commission to tell us a little bit
00:36 more about how this all works.
00:37 Geoff, how big of a challenge is this and what's the planning that goes into this?
00:42 We've been planning this service for many, many months now.
00:45 We've got a big team in our Darwin office.
00:48 We've got teams in the field now.
00:49 We've done all the work on the staffing, logistics, the people and the training and we're ready
00:54 to go.
00:55 And this isn't necessarily new for the Australian Electoral Commission.
00:59 This happens in elections.
01:01 But how is the referendum different?
01:02 It's only got one question.
01:03 Are things easier?
01:05 It is easier.
01:06 Well it is different.
01:07 We deliver elections, federal elections, every three years.
01:10 The referendum is different.
01:11 We have one ballot paper only and of course it's a yes/no response to the question.
01:17 And we don't deal with the political parties in the same way so there's no political party
01:21 engagement and there's no candidates for the referendum.
01:24 And what kind of challenges are you expecting to face over the next few weeks?
01:28 Every time we send teams into the field it's very, very challenging.
01:32 We have issues, for example, we've had locked gates where the teams arrive at a location
01:36 and the gate's locked.
01:37 We have sorry business, other reasons that the teams may not be able to get into a location
01:42 or people might have moved.
01:44 We go to some very small locations and sometimes people are elsewhere, not there when we arrive.
01:49 And tell me a little bit about this location where we are today and how you think it's
01:53 going.
01:54 We're in Warramayunga in the Tiwi Islands this morning.
01:57 We've got a really good turnout of community people coming to engage with the team.
02:00 So we'll be here for four days.
02:02 It's a longer service that we're delivering in this location and we're getting a really
02:05 good turnout so far.
02:07 Thanks Jeff.
02:08 The remote voter service will be travelling across the country for the next three weeks
02:13 to make sure that everyone in Australia has their say in the voice referendum.
02:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]