WA Labor's dodgy polling booth website

This morning, I went to cast my vote in the WA state election. As many Western Australians would have done recently, I asked Google where my nearest pre-polling booth was.

The top result was a WA Labor ad disguised as a neutral resource for voters. The ad for the Vote WA website contained no reference to the Labor Party:

Greens candidate for Fremantle Felicity Townsend said the ad was “really misleading.”

When clicked, the ad takes users to a page which says: “Your vote matters. Make it count.” Users are then prompted to enter their residential address.

If they do, users are supplied information on their nearest polling booth, along with a Labor how-to-vote card for their electorate. In Fremantle, this sat beneath a photo of Premier Roger Cook and local member Simone McGurk in front of Freo’s iconic ‘containbow’:

The page asks users if they’d like directions sent to their phone or email, meaning Labor is using the site to collect information on where voters live and how to get in touch with them. The site’s privacy policy says any email address provided “will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it, such as to provide information in response/follow up, and will not be added to an automated mailing list unless you specifically request and confirm your desire to be added to such a list.”

Both pages of the website contain an ALP authorisation at the bottom in small print – it’s fairly easy to miss.

One of McGurk's challengers for the seat of Fremantle, Felicity Townsend of the Greens, told me the website was “a bit grubby” and “doesn’t smack of integrity.”

“Maybe they’re more worried than they’re letting on about seats that they’re probably going to lose or big swings against Labor in some of their safe seats like Fremantle,” she said.

Townsend said there was appetite for change in Fremantle, and the Greens offered a good alternative to Labor.

“People know us,” she said. “They know that we’ve been advocating for the community, that we’ve been around, that we have really strong  evidence-based policies that respond to community concerns, but also that we’ll hopefully get the balance of power in the Upper House, so will be working with a team to get change for Fremantle.”

The third serious contender in the contest for Fremantle, Climate 200-backed independent Kate Hulett, took out an ad this morning in The West Australian newspaper that raised some eyebrows. “Politicians are full of sh*t,” it read. “I’m not a politician.”

It’s good, strategic political communication – but when it comes to the major parties at least, it’s hard to argue with the first half. Labor’s cynical ploy to game Google results just provides further evidence.

6PR listeners and presenters were confused this morning about Hulett’s ad: They thought it was part of the WA Electoral Commission (WAEC) ad sitting above it. If that’s confusing to them, who knows what they’d make of Labor’s online ad strategy. The main difference between the two advertisements is that Hulett’s appears to be counterposed with the official WAEC material purely by chance, whereas Labor’s bait and switch seems completely deliberate.

I’ve contacted the WAEC to ask them about the Vote WA website – once they get back to me, I’ll update this story.