Nearly 12 million same-sex marriage votes returned

Three out of four eligible Australians have so far voted in the postal survey on same-sex marriage.

The number of returned same-sex marriage voting forms returned has reached 11.9 million. Photo: AFP

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has estimated that 74.5 per cent of eligible voters or 11.9 million people have participated in Malcolm Turnbull’s postal survey on same-sex marriage as of Friday, October 20.

The ABS estimate is based on a new methodology which explains the significant jump in results on last week which showed that 10.8 million eligible voters — or 67.5 per cent of those on the electoral roll — had participated.

The new methodology has been based on an actual count of forms scanned rather than earlier estimates which were only based on the weight of bulk containers which contained the returned forms.

Today’s result also indicates that the estimates in previous weeks had been conservative in nature, with the ABS saying it had only received an additional 300,000 forms over the last week — not the 1.1 million forms the result would appear to indicate.

All postal survey forms must be received by the ABS by 6pm on November 7 to be included in the final count, with the outcome of the vote to be declared on November 15.

Response rate increases as deadline nears.
3.10.17 9.2m received
10.10.17 10m
17.10.17 10.8m
24.10.17 11.9mhttps://t.co/Y9nyAzk0Lu

— David Crowe (@CroweDM) October 24, 2017

More to come ...