The following explains how the ACT’s vote will count today, and it can make a difference.
In 1977, the Constitution was changed to allow people in the territories to vote in future referendums. Before then, only people in the states could vote.
The Yes and No votes in the ACT (and other territories) get added to the national total. They do not get added to any state total.
That can make a difference to the result, but only in exceptional circumstances.
For a referendum to be passed, a majority of people in a majority of states have to vote Yes. And a majority of people voting Australia-wide (including the territories) have to vote Yes.
It would be unlikely for a vote to pass in four states and not get an overall majority, so the territory votes are unlikely to ever make the difference between a referendum being passed or not.
But there are two possibilities where they might count.
Just say this referendum passed narrowly in Victoria, NSW, Tasmania and Western Australia, but was overwhelmingly rejected in Queensland and South Australia so that the total of the votes across the six states was, say, 5,500,000 Yes and 5,510,000 No. Before the territories got the vote that referendum would fail. But, say, the territories’ vote totalled 100,000 Yes and 89,000 No. That would bring the Australian total to 5,600,000 Yes and 5,599,000 No, and the referendum would pass.
Remote, but possible.
The other possibility is that you get four small states voting Yes and two big states voting No, with a six-state total of, say, 5,510,000 Yes and 5,500,000 No. Before the territories got the vote, that referendum would pass. But, say, the territories’ vote totalled 89,000 Yes and 100,000 No, the new Australia-wide totals would be 5,589,000 Yes and 5,600,000 No, and the referendum would fail.
In the Communist Party referendum in 1951 three small states voted yes; Tasmania was very close; and the overall result was very close; so such an outcome is possible, but not in this referendum because the Yes vote is bigger in the big states.
No referendum has ever got a majority of states with a minority of overall votes. And when a referendum has got four or more states the majority has been so large that the territory vote has been irrelevant.
Yes, your territory vote counts, but only if the votes in the states pan out in a very unusual way.