Dozens of campaigners who built substantial audiences during the COVID era by opposing Australia's pandemic response have turned their focus to undermining the Oct. 14 referendum, analysis of social media posts by independent fact-checkers shows. The direct link between COVID agitators and misinformation about the Voice has not been previously reported in detail. Polls show support for the Voice has slumped from about two-thirds in April to less than 40% this month. Not one X post containing electoral misinformation was marked or taken down in the monitoring period, before or after being reported, Reset.Tech said. "Many of the accounts pushing electoral misinformation narratives turned to a style of anti-lockdown politics during the pandemic," said Reset.Tech Australia executive director Alice Dawkins.

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Persons: William Bay, Hitler, Bay, Reset.Tech, Elon Musk, Alice Dawkins, Ella Woods, Joyce, Evan Ekin, Smyth, Donald Trump, Luke Howarth, Covid, David Heilpern, Graham Hood, Pauline Hanson, Tristan Van Rye, Hood, Hanson, Van Rye, Ed Coper, Rosita Diaz, Diaz, BILL Australia's, Michelle Rowland, we're, Elise Thomas, Byron Kaye, Praveen Menon, Daniel Flynn, David Crawshaw Organizations: Reuters, REUTERS, Facebook, COVID, Meta, Reset.Tech, U.S, Southern Cross University, Qantas, Aboriginal, Labor, Communications, Advance Australia, Institute for Strategic, Thomson Locations: Brisbane, Australia, BRISBANE, Brisbane's, Reset.Tech Australia, Northern Territory, Canada, U.S, New Zealand, Melbourne