The Referendum is not

over yet. It won't be over until the polls close on Saturday, until the last person has made a decision. 

After that comes the counting. Then, whichever way it goes, there will be the discussions and the analyses and the finger pointing. There will be tears and shouts of rage too no doubt. 

This has to be the most divisive campaign in the history of this country. It is the campaign which has had to deal with social media as well as the media and the politicians. It has been run like an election campaign although it was not intended to be an election campaign. 

There are things which have been said which should never have been said and things that have been left unsaid. There has been "misinformation" and "disinformation" - and there have been outright and highly recognisable lies. 

I have tried sifting through all the information I can find. I have looked at the sources of that information. I have read professional legal opinions and simple letters to the editor and many articles in between.While I try to inform myself before each election I found myself more concerned about this than any actual election.

Changing our Constitution is no small matter. I was too young to vote in the 1967 Referendum which brought the change which included everyone in the Constitution.  I do remember my paternal grandfather getting up to speak in church. As a Presbyterian elder he had some authority in his community and he spoke in favour of the change. He never talked about politics. He did not see that move as political, simply inclusive. 

I think the present issue would trouble him deeply. He would have tried to inform himself. There was no social media then. My grandparents did not even have a television set and rarely listened to the radio. There were no glossy fliers in letterboxes. It was the newspapers which informed him then.

All the "information" we get now is a distraction. It is not informing us at all.