The Challenge of Informed Voting at Constitutional Referendums

There has long been debate about the capacity of Australian electors to cast an informed vote at constitutional referendums. However, this debate has yielded few new insights in recent years, with most commentary focusing narrowly on whether longstanding concerns about informed voting are well-founded or overstated. This article employs the methods and analytical approaches of law and political science in an attempt to provide fresh perspectives on the subject. It reflects on why informed referendums might be considered valuable, discusses how it differs from informed voting at elections, and suggests three different conceptions of informed voting. It examines how legal regulation of referendums affects the capacity of citizens to both form a view on reform proposals, and to cast a vote that is consistent with that view. The article provides detailed empirical analysis of referendum voting: it considers a variety of evidence, including data from original focus group research, to explore the different ways in which Australians try to meet the challenge of informed voting, the extent to which they succeed, and how they feel about it. It also suggests a variety of legal and institutional reforms that might make citizens better able to meet the challenge of informed referendum voting. The article concludes by reflecting on the natural limits of any attempt, by legal means or otherwise, to improve the incidence of informed referendum voting in Australia