New England voters turn out early in Voice to Parliament referendum

By Tuesday, October 6, just four days out from referendum day, almost 18 per cent of registered voters in the New England had already cast their vote, one way or the other.

There are 116,060 people registered to vote in the region, which means about 23,000 have already dropped their 'Yes' or 'No' in the ballot box.

Early polling centres across NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory opened on Tuesday, October 3, due to the Labor Day public holiday on Monday, October 2.

Voters in Victoria, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Tasmania were able to start voting on October 2.

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A total of 8324 people in the Tamworth region, which includes Kootingal, Nundle, Manilla, Dungowan, Barraba and other smaller towns, have already headed to the polls to vote.

The country music capital has recorded the most single-day, pre-poll votes of all the 14 local government areas in the New England so far, with 1654 voters turning up on Monday, October 9, followed by 1462 people on Friday, October 6, in the same region.

More broadly, Monday, October 9, has also been the most popular day across the New England so far, with 6418 heading to prepoll centres in Tamworth, Inverell, Muswellbrook, Glenn Innes and Tenterfield.

At the opposite end of the scale, the quietest day so far has been Thursday, October 5, with just 1406 people in Tamworth and Armidale casting their votes in the region.

More than 8000 people in the New England have registered to vote by snail mail, which is nearly 7 per cent of the total 116,060 voters.

The New England region takes in Tamworth and 13 other local government areas including Gunnedah, Liverpool Plains, Walcha, Armidale, Tenterfield, the Upper Hunter, Inverell, Gwydir, Moree, Muswellbrook, Uralla, Narrabri and Glen Innes.

Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) spokesperson Pat Callanan said vote counting will start once polls close at 6pm local time in each location on October 14, and will continue until about 11pm that night before resuming about 8am on Sunday, October 15.

"Sunday is a really big day in terms of moving materials all around the country, like ballot papers, to get them to their home divisions to be counted, and then continuing the counting as well," Mr Callanan said.

"The counting itself is a bit more straightforward than a federal election, because there's only a 'yes' or 'no' vote, and no distribution of preferences to worry about."

Mr Callanan said, "like a federal election, we might not necessarily have a result on the night, depending on how close it is".

He said if the margin is close between the "yes" and "no" camps on the night of October 14, then vote counting will continue until all postal votes have returned.

"That would be if it was really coming down to the wire," Mr Callanan said.

Mr Callanan said more than 17 million Australians have enrolled to vote, which is 97.7 per cent of the electoral roll, and "that's the highest number it's ever been".

"It's the first time we've ever had above 90 per cent of Indigenous Australians enrolled. And above 90 per cent of youth enrolled as well," Mr Callanan said.

About two million postal votes have been sent out to date.

Voters will head to the polls on Saturday, October 14, 2023.

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