1. The first look at the form that will decide on same-sex marriage in Australia is here.
The same-sex marriage postal survey form & envelope are up on the ABS website: pic.twitter.com/XxSibJDaZq
— Lane Sainty (@lanesainty) September 11, 2017
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released a sample of the survey it will send out to Australian voters to decide if same-sex marriage should be made legal.
The first survey papers are set to be mailed today, with the ABS estimating it will take two weeks to send the forms to all 16 million eligible voters. The cost of the mailout is estimated to cost $122 million.
Everyone on the electoral roll should receive their copy of the survey by September 25.
The form asks just one, simple question, with respondents given a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ box to mark as their response.
“Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?” reads the paper.
Instructions for how to complete the form are also included, which specify voters should use a dark pen to mark one box only.
“Put your form (and nothing else) in the enclosed Reply Paid envelope (no stamp needed),” the survey reads.
The stipulation has been included after social media users encouraged others to include glitter in the envelope with their survey results.
But the ABS warns that “any extraneous material inserted in the envelope” will make votes ineligible.
“This could also contaminate processing machinery or result in the survey also being destroyed and not processed,” the ABS said, according to ABC News.
Voters are also discouraged from using blank space on the survey to draw or write messages about why or how they voted.
The survey also reveals voters have a deadline of 6:00pm on November 7 to return their vote. A result is expected to be announced a week later on November 15.
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