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| Pic courtesy The Guardian |
The other day, gentle reader, I worked out that I have participated (or attempted to participate) in twenty federal elections since 1969.
The first one in 1969 was notable in that whilst at age 21 I was old enough to vote in that election I never did, as I was refused leave from Canungra Jungle Training Centre to do so. I was threatened with a charge of being AWOL if I left the base to vote.
This was particularly frustrating as I was training to fight (in peacetime) in South Vietnam as a conscript, and felt I was entitled to have a say in my immediate future. Labor policy at the time was to abolish conscription. I did end up in Vietnam, and had to wait until 1972 to see that policy implemented.
Through all those elections, I have never observed such an avalanche of disinformation about the forthcoming ballot that I'm observing now, most of it emanating from the lunatic fringe of social media, which has oozed across the Pacific.
It has its origin in Donald Trump's big lie, and has been promoted by every disaffected group that coalesced during the pandemic and government attempts, through the health system, to manage it.
The Australian Electoral Commission has found it necessary to develop a web page specifying many of those slabs of disinformation and fact checking them.
For example, these are some of the dark whispers doing the rounds -
There will be two federal elections in 2022 including the People's non-corporate commonwealth election.
And
Dominion voting machines will be used and will be rigged to favour one of the major political parties.
And
Postal voting is not secure and people should deregister.
The ludicrous nature of this disinformation should make it completely apparent to anyone with any knowledge of this country's electoral system that it is toxic nonsense, but there are those who actually believe it.
This Youtube video explains pretty clearly (albeit with a tongue-in cheek approach) why our system is the best in the world.
Democracy is an exercise in participation. In this country it is encouraged.
That's important. I remember very well what happened in 1969.
