The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the first estimate of participation rates in the same-sex marriage survey, with more than half the country having already voted.
Around 9.2 million people are said to have returned their forms as of September 29, equalling 57.5 per cent of eligible participants.
The total is set to be updated weekly ahead of the November 15 results release, in a bid to encourage Australians to vote.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released the first estimate of participation rates in the same-sex marriage survey, with more than half the country having already voted
The Bureau said that the numbers were ‘indicative only’ as the count is based on the numbers of containers of sorted envelopes rather than counts of individual forms.
It does not include forms that have been posted back but are yet to have been delivered to the ABS.
Jonathon Palmer, the Deputy Statistician and Taskforce Lead, said the weekly updates would hopefully see more people ‘have their say’.
‘These updates may encourage participation by those who have not yet responded and will inform reasonable public expectations about the likely final level of response,’ he said.
‘We hope that this update will serve as a reminder to those who have not submitted their form to do so promptly if they wish to have their say.’
The ABS announced last Thursday that it would be releasing the results but said they would not include an indication of how the vote was split between the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps.
Around 9.2 million people are said to have returned their forms as of September 29, equalling 57.5 per cent of eligible participants
The total is set to be updated weekly ahead of the November 15 results release, in a bid to encourage Australians to vote
The count is expected to have used adjustments to factor in invalid, damaged or invalidated forms and comes just a week after all the forms had officially been sent out to homes.
Mr Palmer said earlier that there had been ‘great public interest’ in the survey’s progress but that processing will take some time.
The results of the official statistics and the final participation count will be made available on November 15.
Requests for new survey forms will close 6pm on Friday, 20 October 2017, Mr Palmer said, with the close of the survey on November 7.
The results of the official statistics and the final participation count will be made available on November 15