'Our postal votes stolen': Melbourne mum's anger to find dumped same-sex marriage envelopes in backyard
A Melbourne mother was left angry and upset after stumbling across 17 unopened same-sex marriage postal vote envelopes dumped on her property.
Primary school teacher Kerry Ford, of Brunswick, found the envelopes addressed to neighbours stashed behind her carport, near her children’s cubby house.
Ms Ford, who is in a same-sex relationship, told The Age she wasn’t aware how the postal votes reached her backyard, but suspected someone had raided local letter boxes.
"Our postal votes have also been stolen," she said.
The mother of two said she contacted the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which is coordinating the survey, and was instructed to hand in the papers to the local police.
Despite admitting she was tempted to just vote “yes” 17 times and post the papers in herself, she said she would instead follow the ABS’ instructions and pass the material along to the authorities.
Ms Ford said the serious mail breach highlighted how easy it was to corrupt the $122m survey process that could undermine the result's integrity.
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"The upsetting thing is not so much how it happened but that it shows how completely inefficient the process is," she said.
"It's not a true representation of people's views if people may or may not vote or may not follow up their voting paper."
If someone suspects mail has been stolen or has witnessed mail tampering, the ABS advised to report it to the local police.
The Bureau warned theft or tampering with mail was a criminal offence which carried serious penalties.
Under the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989, examining the contents of mail by someone who is not approved to do so is punishable by imprisonment for a term of up to two years.
If you have not received your postal survey by Monday September 25, a replacement may be requested from The Australian Bureau of Statistics or call 1800 572 113 until 20 October.
"The replacement survey will have a new barcode on it and the previous one will be cancelled and any previous response won't be counted," an ABS spokesperson said.
