Australia’s voice to parliament Polling catchments where Indigenous Australians form more than 50% of the population voted on average 63% in favour of the voice
63% is overwhelming? It’s less than a 2/3 majority.
That was in booths where the population is at least 50% Indigenous. It’s difficult to capture these demographics directly so they have to do it by % Indigenous population in each booth / area.
But that just makes the numbers even more meaningless. While it might be very likely that most of the Yes votes came from indigenous people, it’s also possible that 100% of the non-indigenous people in that area voted Yes and a majority of indigenous people voted No.
Stretcing 63% of the overall vote into an overwhelming majority of indigenous people lacks journalistic integrity.
You would expect non indigenous votes to track similar patterns to other nearby polling stations. Consider the pretty smooth gradient we see with yes vs no generally.
It’s not unreasonable to expect non indigenous voting to track the 60% no. It would be strange if they didn’t, possible but not really a reasonable assumption.
So in a 50% place with a 60/40 split you might expect somewhere like the (previously indicated) ~80% voting yes. Perhaps a bit lower, but still high support.
Again, this isn’t the only indicator of indigenous support given the earlier polling.
Sure, in casual conversation it’s a reasonable assumption. That doesn’t hold for journalists writing news articles - particularly when it is stated as fact and not clarified. You have to analyse the numbers to realise the headline is hollow.
No that’s literally how statistical inference works. If you think they’ve made an error submit a letter and get them to retract the article.
No it isn’t, there’s a massive gap in the statistics where the inference should be derived from. If you think I’m wrong then explain it, don’t brush it off without actually saying anything meaningful.
How can you infer that an overwhelming portion of one group supported something when all you have is the combined level of support and no statistics on the individual groups, other than a ratio of population size?
It’s an assumption, it’s not labeled as such, that’s bad journalism.
Sometimes assumptions have to be made especially in this case.
The AEC policy is to cast aside your vote so it doesn’t count towards the election - e.g. if you write your name or signature on the ballot paper, it will tossed out when they count the vote. If you take a selfie with your ballot paper showing how you voted, they are also required to discard your vote.
Reliable data on exactly how people voted is not available and cannot ever be available (under current laws)… so, yes, pretty much anything relating to the election is based on assumptions. That doesn’t make them useless. I’m assuming the sun will rise tomorrow morning… I don’t have any proof, but a lack of proof doesn’t make my assumption wrong.
The data they provided is pretty compelling - for example the Wadeye electorate where 92% of the vote was Yes. And by the way, about 90% of that electorate were are indigenous in the 2016 Census (pretty old now, but it likely hasn’t changed much).
What’s also interesting is those communities bucked other major trends in this election:
- Wadeye is about as far as you can possibly get from a major city and still be on the mainland… Adelaide is the closest proper city — 3,230km from Wadey. In general the further from a city people are the more likely they are to have voted No.
- I’m making an assumption here, but based on the fact they are so far from the nearest university there probably aren’t many university educated people in Wadeye… and people with no university education were also more likely to vote No.
If indigenous and white people shared the same opinion on the vote, then you’d expect Wadeye to have one of the strongest No votes in the country. But nope - they voted 92% yes.
get them to retract it if you’re so sure.
Well the bbc said it was overwhelmingly shot downs with a 60 40 ratio
Well yeah, here in the UK referendums are only allowed to pass or fail in the cursed 52:48 ratio
Must be devastating to be indigenous in Australia. Even a paltry thing like this can’t pass as long as the settler/colonisers are there. I despair for them.
why wouldn’t they?
Why wouldn’t anyone? The people it would affect really wanted it and the people it didn’t affect had no real reason to deny it.
There was a lot of talk that most Aboriginal Australians didn’t want the voice.
There was literally no downside for ATSI communities to vote yes.
Additional representation with no limitations on existing avenues of representation? Who wouldn’t sign up… assuming you’re included.
