IEC opens a public question line for election week

The Electoral Commission has opened a line to the public for election week, inviting voters to send in their questions and to flag information they want checked.

The commission is running the exercise through what it calls the IEC Podcast: Election Edition, described in its own announcement as a quick-response election information show. Through election week the commission says it will answer questions from the public and check information circulating online.

Voters are asked to send questions and to say what they want the commission to check.

The commission has not said how quickly individual queries will be answered, how many it expects, or which platforms the answers will appear on beyond the podcast itself. It has also not set out how it will treat claims it cannot verify.

For voters, the practical value of the exercise rests on those unanswered details. A checking service is only as useful as the speed and reach of its corrections, and an election week is short.

The commission’s announcement did not carry a schedule of episodes.