2016 Federal election

Objective

Cultural Perspectives were engaged by Australian Electoral Commission to deliver a comprehensive communications campaign for CALD audiences. The aim of the election time campaign was to educate eligible Australians about the changes to the Electoral Act, support the AEC to maximise enrolment and participation in the 2016 federal election and deliver a high integrity campaign in an extremely tight timeframe.

Approach

Our approach looked beyond traditional approach of translating advertising of key electoral material to build an engagement strategy with two clear campaign tasks:

1)     Awareness – of the changes and the federal election and that ‘your vote matters’; and

2)     Influence – education of target communities about voting processes to maximise overall participation.

CP built a data model that would allow for targeting of the top 30 languages spoken at home, reaching more than 80% of the eligible CALD community. We brought to life AEC’s campaign positioning “Your vote will help shape Australia” through the five-phased communication approach.

We produced more than 800 pieces of high quality, tailored in-language advertising materials between the 26th April – 2nd July 2016 as well as the implementation of integrated community engagement and public relations activities to educate communities about the Senate voting changes and address informality.

Results

·  Correct ‘how to vote above the line’ on the Senate ballot paper responses from CALD participants increased from 46% to 89%;

·  92% of surveyed CALD participants were aware they need to be enrolled to vote;

·  85% of CALD participants were aware they could enrol online;

·  Likelihood of CALD participants voting in the next federal election increased from 77% to 86%;

·  During the formality survey, 97% of CALD survey participants said they had voted in the federal election.