Update 11am
Statistics minister Maurice Williamson says individual and dwelling census forms completed online reached the 1.7 million mark overnight.
“The Australian census managed to reach 30 per cent of forms completed online in its 2011 Census. The target for the New Zealand census is 35 per cent and we are on track to reach that," he says in a statement.
“The census is like the Rugby World Cup for statisticians, so beating the Australians will certainly be a moment of pride for Statistics New Zealand.”
People can also still complete census forms online. Meanwhile, collectors will be picking up paper forms right through until March 17.
Original article
Statistics New Zealand is pleased with the performance of its online census system yesterday.
Handling of online submissions on census evening ran “really well”, says census development manager Sarah Minson this morning.
The peak traffic was only about 130,000 forms an hour, short of the 150,000 provided for and the computer systems performed with no interruption.
By late in the evening of census day, 1.5 million forms had been submitted online and Statistics NZ is confident of reaching the 2 million online submissions expected – 35 percent of all census returns.
The contact centre handled about 40,000 miscellaneous queries, Minson says – common themes included “how do I handle this situation?” – for example having visitors in the home - and “why are you asking this question?”.
There were no technical queries that required escalation to Datacom, she says.