The voice referendum’s no campaign seems increasingly concerned that “if you don’t know, vote no” may be too complicated a message for its own supporters to follow. But with the latest Naplan results showing one in three Australian school students is not meeting minimum numeracy and literacy expectations, perhaps they’ve got good reason to be. Indeed, the referendum has become something of a Naplan test for the no campaign this week. On the literacy side, the no campaign is concerned people won’t write yes or no but instead will disqualify their vote by marking their ballot paper with a cross. And on the numeracy side, some of them seem to be in confusion about whether the Uluru statement is one page or 26.
Some sympathy should be extended to these no voters, though. Despite the fact that they only have to write two-thirds as many letters as yes voters, it may become too much for them in the heat of the moment and a couple of strokes may be the limit of their abilities. Furthermore, the instructions are only clearly written on the ballot paper, twice, and in bold lettering, so it’s perfectly understandable if, in all the excitement of refusing to support an Indigenous voice to parliament, they accidentally invent their own system of voting. It’ll be their own Homer Simpson moment, mirroring the Little Miss Springfield episode where newsreader Kent Brockman reports that Homer filled out a form incorrectly because “in the area under ‘DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE’, he wrote ‘OKAY’”.
