Election workers are preparing for up to a million voters to descend on pre-poll centres on Friday in a last-minute rush to cast their ballots ahead of Saturday's Voice to Parliament referendum vote.
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As the rival "yes" and "no" camps prepared to mount a final push for support in the closing hours of the referendum campaign, the Australian Electoral Commission said that as at late Thursday around 4.8 million people, including 90,000 in the ACT, had voted early and a further 2.1 million had applied for a postal vote.
If, as expected, close to a million attend pre-poll centres on Friday, the number voting early or by post will reach around 8 million - almost half the 17.6 million enrolled to vote in the referendum.
The pre-poll rush comes amid signs momentum behind the "no" campaign has eased, though it retains a handy 58 to 42 per cent lead over the "yes" case, according to an average of public polls.
The analysis, undertaken by Sydney University researcher Simon Jackman, shows "yes" had around 42 per cent as of late Wednesday, and the rate of decline in its support had slowed in recent weeks after a particularly weak period in mid-June.
While warning that "caveats abound" in interpreting the result, Professor Jackman said the poll average was for a 42.5 per cent "yes" vote on October 14, well short of the national majority and majority of states needed for the preposed referendum change to succeed.
He cautioned that, "this projection is not a forecast of the referendum outcome, but of the poll average".
In his final pitch to undecided voters, prominent "yes" campaigner Noel Pearson asked that they "don't slam the door on the children".
"This is not about Noel Pearson or Patrick Dodson or Jacinta Price or [Warren] Mundine," Mr Pearson said. "We are the past. The children are the future. We're doing it for them."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged voters to ignore the "fear campaign nonsense".
"There's nothing to fear here. Just a non-binding advisory committee so that we can hear from indigenous Australians about matters that affect them," Mr Albanese said. "I hope Australians rise to the occasion on Saturday and vote yes."
But, moments after casting her ballot in Alice Springs, prominent "no" campaigner and Nationals MP Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, said she rejected the Voice proposal because "I don't believe we should be divided along the lines of race in our country".
"There is no detail. There's never been any detail ... other than the feeling of the vibe, and I don't like the way we've been divided as a country," she said.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton expressed confidence that the "no" case "will get up" but again cautioned against complacency among "no" supporters.
"People are indicating that they're voting 'no', but they think the thing's done and dusted so they won't turn out to vote," he said.
"And I just implore those people, please ... cast your vote because I think it's the most important vote that people will cast in their lifetime."
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Rehearsing a line of attack on the government that is likely to be pursued more vigorously if the Voice proposal is rejected, Mr Dutton accused Mr Albanese of ignoring pressing concerns about the economy because of the referendum.
"The first 16 months of his prime ministership have been lost to his obsession on the Voice and decisions that they should have made to relieve some of the cost of living pressures that actually ... hadn't been made," he said.
But Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that "nothing could be further from the truth".
"One of the biggest lies of this referendum campaign [has been] that our efforts to entrench a Voice in our constitution has come at the expense of a focus on the economy," the treasurer said.
Dr Chalmers said the Voice complemented the drive to improve the effectiveness of government spending, and cited measures including targeted living cost relief, establishing the Housing Future Fund and delivering a budget surplus as evidence that Labor was focused on the economy.
Mr Albanese has ruled out legislating the Voice to Parliament if the proposal fails at the referendum, but independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe, despite dismissing the Voice as "window dressing", told ABC radio she would support a bill to establish it.
"As long as we're not in that constitution I'll support it," Senator Thorpe said. "We need all the help we can get in there."
But she later backtracked, posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, that, "I do not support the Voice proposed by the government and no representative body should be established, in any form, unless it is the product of the free prior and informed consent of the First Peoples of this country".