I'm not really seeing the deception here since it specifies hard labour and says it would apply to all serious violent offenses. How could you vote for this and not know you were voting for hard labour?

"Hard labour for all serious violent offenses" seems almost refreshingly straightforward. Was there more in the actual referendum that was hidden? I grant that "serious violent offenses" is somewhat vague; was it overly broad?

That question clearly says hard labour. I'm sure some people didn't read it, but I think there also may be another effect there, where when talking to people in person, they realize you are morally opposed to forced hard labour, and don't want to seem like a bad person, so they pretend they didn't know. Sort of similar to the recent effect in the US where trump significantly underpolled as many voted for him but don't want to admit it.

Sounds more like an argument for requiring referendums to be about a single issue rather than bundling multiple ones into a single question.

If a new law mentions victims I assume they're trying to appeal to my emotions. The joke is on them because I am a robot in skin form.

Yeah, there are many terrible legal abortions in California with the referendum setup too.