This McKinnon Poll tested public attitudes towards electoral reform in Australia. Noting the advent of technological solutions and topical debates, the research sought information on how Australians understand the voting system as well as their views on online voting, political donations, and regulating truth in political advertising.

Research objectives:

• Knowledge and trust in the current electoral system and electoral processes.
• Whether there are any concerns around the integrity and trustworthiness of the current electoral systems.
• Awareness of the costs of the electoral system both in terms of running a State or Federal election and impositions on the public of physically having to go to a ballot box – as well as the social benefits of physical elections (the democracy sausage and the cake stall).
• What benefits or concerns might exist about using online or electronic voting systems technology for voting.
• The extent to which the public is aware of and willing to support political donation reform.
• The public’s openness to balancing the trade-off between free speech and regulating the content of political advertising.

Key findings:

• Only 45% of Australian voters have either complete (9%) or high (36%) trust and confidence in democracy as the way we decide on our government.
• No accountability for promises made during election campaigns (42%) is the biggest perceived threat to the integrity of Australia’s electoral process. This is followed by too much negative / uninformative political advertising (33%), a lack of trust in political candidates / parties (31%), and political donations by industry and business (30%).
• When given the choice to make, there is far greater importance placed on regulating to remove false / negative content from political advertising (52%) than there is for freedom of speech (16%). Although voters are sceptical as to whether legislating truth in political advertising can work.