A record number of Australians have voted informal in Saturday's election, with more than 675,000 votes already ruled out of the count – including one in every eight votes cast in the heart of western Sydney.

In a second wave of the protest that saw 729,000 Australians vote informal in 2010 – almost half of them, by deliberate choice – the Electoral Commission's figures show Australians are on track to break that record this time.

Senate ballot paper at 2013 election booths.

Late yesterday the commission's virtual tally room (vtr.aec.gov.au) reported that with just 78 per cent of the vote counted for the House of Representatives, 677,000 votes had been cast aside as informal. One vote in every 17 cast at this election did not count.

In 2010, 5.55 per cent of votes were ruled informal. This time, the count is running at 5.91 per cent.