THE rate of return at this month's local government elections is an unknown quantity.
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Tasmanian Deputy Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey said historically, the rate of return was on average between 50 and 55 per cent for local government elections.
However, Mr Hawkey said this year's all-in-all-out elections for all 29 councils could see the figure increase, decline or remain on average.
"In the past we have only had to vote for half the councillors, whereas this time we have to vote for all the councillors," he said.
"It is a bit bigger of a task for people to do and that is why we have changed booklets to include a photo of each of the candidates where they have made one available."
In total, 54.28 per cent of Tasmanian local government electors returned their ballot material at the 2011 elections in comparison to 55.45 per cent in 2009 and a decade-high 58.52 per cent in 2005.
Tasmania has a higher response rate compared to Western Australia (33.35 per cent in 2011) and South Australia (32.88 per cent in 2010), which also conduct non-compulsory local government elections by postal ballot.
Mr Hawkey said the number of positions vacant, the number of candidates and local issues at the time of the election were factors that influenced the response rate.
He said smaller councils often showed higher response rates.
Mr Hawkey said people would start received their ballot material from Tuesday, and that their ballot paper must be in the hand of the returning officer or council ballot box before on Tuesday, October 28.
"There is no point putting it in the post on Tuesday morning because it won't get to us," he said.
"Like any election, there are always people who leave it a bit too late to vote.
"In 2011, we had about 1.3 per cent (4778) of the votes come in late."