(Post first published Friday 11 October but will be updated each daily with 2024 figures.)
Final Totals – 144,863 pre-poll votes have been cast representing 45.5% of enrolment. That will end up being just over 50% of all votes given a 2020 turnout of 89.2%. The final day of pre-polling took 25,437 votes, slightly down on the final day in 2020, perhaps due to several downpours during the day. Graphs of the final numbers are below and inside the post.
The 2020 ACT election was conducted in the first year of Covid restrictions. As a Covid measure, the ACT Electoral Commission removed all restrictions on early voting, increased the number of early voting centres and opened early voting centres on Saturday and Sunday.
As a result the rate of early voting in 2020 was more than double the 2016 rate. As a percentage of enrolment, early voting rose from 29.5% to 63.5%. As a percentage of final votes cast, the rate increased from 33.6% to 69.9%.
For the 2024 election, unrestricted access to early voting remains in place, but the period for pre-poll voting has been reduced from three weeks to two, from 19 days to 11. The number of early voting centres has also been reduced from 15 to 11.
As the chart below shows, the late start for early voting means that the numbers are well down on the same period in 2020. But even with a shorter early voting period, rates are well ahead of the numbers for the longer early voting period in 2016.
The chart below compares the number of 2024 early votes taken by day with the same day in 2020. As you would expect, the overall numbers are well down, but the late start for pre-polling has seen more votes taken per day.
Postal Voting
After the close of Postal Vote applications, approximately 25,200 Postal votes have been dispatched representing 7.9% of enrolment. This compares to 2020 when 22,317 postal votes were dispatched representing 7.4% of enrolment. Approximately 17,400 postal votes have been returned representing 69% of postal packs dispatched.
A total of 482 Mobile Polling votes have also been taken.
The following return rates for postal votes applied in 2020.
- 22,317 postal votes were issued
- 17,172 (77.0%) were returned and admitted to the count as votes.
- 2,128 (9.5%) were issued but the elector voted by other means.
- 1,601 (7.2%) were issued but not returned and the elector did not vote.
- 1,416 (6.3%) were returned but did not produce a vote admitted to the count for reasons set out below.
- 232 were 'return to sender'.
- 247 returned too late to be admitted to the count.
- 112 were received but the vote was not admitted because the voter was enrolled incorrectly.
- 7 were cancelled due to death or notice of incapacity
- 69 received but rejected because voter completed declaration with a date after election day.
- 195 received but rejected because voter did not sign the declaration.
- 181 received but rejected because voter's signature did not match signature on application or enrolment.
- 26 received but rejected because different person signed declaration.
- 347 received but not admitted because there was no identifying declaration.