With the federal government and opposition striking a deal on how to run the coming referendum on a Voice to Parliament, we now know how it will work.
Australians will be asked to vote on whether to enshrine the proposed Voice in the Australian Constitution and formally recognise the nation's Indigenous history.
We still do not know the date that the referendum will be run, but it will be on a Saturday after September, because the prime minister says otherwise it risks clashing with several sporting grand final weekends.
It will be the first referendum in many people's lifetimes. Millions of Australians who will be eligible to vote in this poll were too young, or not even born, when the last referendum was held.
And because the laws that are used to conduct a referendum have not been touched in so long, the government said they had fallen out of date.
Parliament has agreed to a refreshed set of laws that set the rules for how the referendum will be conducted, so now we know what it will look like.
The government wants voting in the referendum to feel as similar as possible to voting in a federal election, so people feel familiar with the process.
And, so — like an election — only Australians over the age of 18 who have enrolled to vote will be allowed to cast a ballot.
A push by the Greens to allow on-the-day enrolment was rejected, as well as attempts to enfranchise imprisoned Australians, who cannot vote if they are serving sentences of more than three years.
So, what can you expect as we head towards the voting booths?
First, there will be a pamphlet
There is one key difference in how referendums are officially conducted, which is that a pamphlet spelling out the issues will be sent to prospective voters ahead of the day.
Normally a pamphlet is not something that people get very excited about, but it caused a stir in parliament when the government last year said it would drop the mail-out this year, since technology had changed and they did not believe it was relevant any longer.
After some argy-bargy with the opposition, the pamphlet is back, and so an official document containing arguments — both for and against a Voice to Parliament — as well as the details of the proposed constitutional change, will be distributed to every enrolled household at least a fortnight before the vote.
Each argument will be authorised by a majority of the MPs who support it, and must be completed within a month of the referendum being triggered.
And while Commonwealth spending to support a particular argument on the Voice has been ruled out, funding will be available for neutral "civics" campaigns that would provide basic information around casting a vote.
Yes, there will probably be democracy sausages
The window for postal and pre-poll voting has narrowed since special COVID-19 rules allowed much more flexibility in casting a vote.
However, the trend in recent elections has steered firmly towards more Australians voting before the official polling day.
For the referendum, postal votes will be allowed for similar reasons as those in an election — such as being more than 20 kilometres from a polling place, serious illness or being overseas — and pre-polling booths will be opened no sooner than 12 days before the official Saturday polling day.
Voters will be able to turn up to polling places, just as in a federal election, where they will be marked off. They will then be presented with a ballot that will have a box in which they will write Yes or No.
The ballot paper will read:
"A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.
Do you approve this proposed alteration?"
And, of course, what would give Australians a warm sense of familiarity on voting day more than a "democracy sausage"? So you can probably expect the barbecues to be fired up at polling places as well.
Counting votes won't be so complicated
On voting day, sorting of pre-poll votes will begin from 4pm, meaning there will already be a chunk of votes ready for counting from 6pm when media screens begin lighting up as polling booths on the east coast close.
However, the count will look a little different than election day, because counting "Yes" and "No" for each state will be much simpler than all the calculations that go into counting 151 seats for a federal election under its preferential system.
A majority of Australians and a majority of states must support the constitutional change for it to succeed.
That means that, if every east coast state returned a "Yes" vote, the night could be over quite quickly.
However the vote turns out, the result should be clear sooner than a federal election.
Disclosure laws, but it still won't be real-time
Parliament also agreed to an update to donation laws — although there will still be no real-time disclosure of how campaigns have been funded.
A financial disclosure threshold of $15,200 has been set, requiring individuals or organisations who spend more than that amount on referendum campaigning to report their spend, which will be made public.
Foreign donations exceeding $100 will be prohibited, and foreign campaigners will be prohibited from fundraising or directly incurring referendum expenses above $1,000, as a measure to limit foreign influence on the referendum.
The referendum cannot get underway until a bill with the formally proposed change to the constitution passes parliament, triggering the referendum process.
And the federal government says it will introduce that bill to parliament next week.
