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]
