As millions of postal survey forms asking if same-sex marriage should be legalised are sent to letterboxes around the country, some Canberra residents are receiving forms addressed to dead people.
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Since the start of the $122 million postal survey on September 12, there have been some cases of people being sent forms to their household but addressed to residents who have died.
There have also been multiple instances of forms sent to former tenants after they have moved out, or residents receiving multiple forms addressed to them.
Canberra resident Catherine Beasley took to Facebook after her household received a survey form addressed to a now-deceased former homeowner.
"Got our postal survey, including one for the former of the house .. .who died eight years ago," she said.
Hannah Zurcher was sent multiple forms to her Belconnen unit in the days since the start of the survey.
She said one of the forms sent to her was addressed to a former tenant who has died.
Ms Zurcher hasn't opened the additional form or sent it back yet, and said it's concerning some addresses have received multiple forms.
"If we're going to claim that this is the best way to assess the feelings of the nation, we need to make sure we're actually accurate and representative," she said.
A spokesman for the Australian Electoral Commission, who manages the electoral roll of eligible participants in the survey, said the roll receives updates from the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages to update the list of voters to remove those who have died.
"An update on recent deaths was also obtained by the AEC to account for the close of rolls for the marriage survey," the spokesman said.
Several residents have told The Canberra Times they have received multiple survey forms at their home addressed to former tenants.
Campbell resident Sarah Donald got an extra form in the mail before she sent it back.
"This vote is too important and I fear that so many are just throwing the extra forms away," she said.
The same situation happened to Canberran Sophie Finney, who also said she returned her additional form to the sender.
Bruno Antunes said he was sent two survey forms that were both addressed to him.
He said he was the only one in his four-person household who received duplicate forms.
"I posted one of them, I still have the other in a sealed envelope," he said.
"I don't think it's very fair to vote twice, so I haven't."
The numerous cases of people receiving multiple survey forms across the country has prompted the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the organisation running the survey, to warn people of opening forms not addressed to them.
"If you receive a survey form not addressed to you, do the right thing and just return it to sender. It's illegal to open others' mail, unless you have their express permission as a trusted person," deputy statistician Jonathan Palmer said.
"When a replacement form is issued, the previous form will be invalidated and if it has been received its response will not be counted.
"Stealing or tampering with mail is a criminal offence that carries serious penalties."
