A number of disturbing items found inside same sex marriage postal votes.

While processing the same-sex marriage postal votes, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has noticed a disturbing trend.

As expected there were a lot of envelopes filled with glitter, but some postal votes were hiding something far more sinister – razor blades.

In addition to the razor blades, 14 matters have been referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.

ABS deputy Australian statistician Jonathan Palmer told a Senate Committee on Wednesday, the 14 matters were related to the attempted sale of survey forms online and survey form theft.

There have also been 34 complaints of fraud relating to the postal vote which closes on November 7.

The razor blades and other objects found in the envelopes have been discovered by the ABS workers who are responsible for scanning the almost 12 million forms which have already been returned.

According to the ABS’s fourth weekly update, at least 11.9 million people – that’s 75 per cent of eligible voters – have already submitted their survey form.

So far the response rate for the postal vote has surpassed Brexit, which had a response rate of just 72.2 per cent.

However as News.com.au reported earlier this week, around two million people under the age of 35 are yet to submit their votes.

“There is no room for complacency and no reason to think someone else’s vote will win this,” Equality Campaign director Tiernan Brady told News.com.au.

Survey forms must be received at the ABS by 6pm (local time) on November 7 to be included in the count and the survey results will be published on November 15.

LISTEN: Mia Freedman talks to Janine Middleton, the CEO of Australian Marriage Equality, about what you can do to help.