It's hard to know how much fuss to make. It's true there are some reports of rancour between "yes" and "no" campaigns on the ground - but, on the other hand, there is a lot of actual evidence of people who disagree with each other doing so civilly - and even, think of this, being pleasant to each other.
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Take a snapshot at the pre-polling station on the corner of Anketell and Reed Streets in Tuggeranong.
The campaigners from the opposing camps there do the usual dance around each other, handing out leaflets to likely voters - likely to vote their way, that is. The opposing campaigners even pose for pictures together. They say they get on.
But then this uplifting picture of the way democracy is supposed to work gets tarnished by a solitary bit of nastiness.
One leafleter in a "yes" tee-shirt said she was verbally assaulted so viciously on Saturday that she was in tears. She felt the abuse was racist (she has Aboriginal family members).
Some abuse has been mild - a couple of sneers, as "yes" campaigner Anna Dacre puts it. But she does add that her car with the "yes" sticker on the back was "aggressively tailgated".
"And then they passed me and slammed on the brakes," she said. Corflutes have been removed.
But even with the tailgating incident in her mind, she says the atmosphere at the polling station itself has been good. "I think Canberrans are a pretty civilised mob," she said.
One "yes" campaigner said she had seen pens being handed out by "no" campaigners who feared - baselessly - that a vote in pencil could be erased and the result fixed.
"This, we were told, was to protect votes from being rubbed out and changed," the "yes" campaigner Eileen O'Brien said.
"Attempts to undermine Australians' trust in the AEC should be called out and condemned," she said.
But it should be said that The Canberra Times found no sign that this was happening. "No" campaigners were not holding supplies of pens, let alone handing them out.
Doing the polling station dance with yes's Anna Dacre was no's Keith Old.
He dismissed the rumours that the "no' campaign had been handing out pens to potential "no" voters who feared that their vote in pencil could be erased and the result fixed.
He didn't buy the conspiracy theory one single skerrick. "I think people are happy with the way the Australian Electoral Commission is running things," he said.
"It's not like America where the electoral system is run by politicians so you get complaints from both sides about it not being fair.
"If you choose, you can bring your pen but most people trust a pencil and paper."
The AEC said it had had "a couple of reports" of pens being handed out but it didn't think the practice was widespread."
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
