Nicky Hungerford is casting her vote for the marginal north Queensland seat of Leichhardt all the way from Timor-Leste thanks to the intervention of a “mystery man”.
Hungerford is among tens of thousands of Australians overseas who have scrambled to get their hands on – or are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of – their ballot on the eve of an election at which many want their voices heard more than ever.
Once a straightforward task of turning up to an embassy or consulate on polling day, voting for many expats and travellers has been thrown into chaos at this election, after the decision of the Australian Electoral Commission to scrap in-person booths in dozens of places around the world, from Nuku’alofa in Tonga to Washington DC in the US.
The Labor party’s international network says that amounted to 67 polling booths being cut, which is a decision the AEC says it took based on the locations’ “real and potential Covid environment” and ones that “had to be made early”.
“As a result of a once-in-one-hundred-year pandemic, some voters who had previously voted in person at a diplomatic mission, will have to complete a postal vote at this event,” the AEC says.
Nineteen locations will still offer in-person voting.
On its social media accounts, the AEC says more than 50,000 Australians overseas have applied for a postal vote. A spokesperson says it had given overseas voters “plenty of notice”, reaching out “as early as November last year to flag changes”.
Yet the decision still caught many by surprise. Hungerford voted at the last two elections from Timor-Leste and had assumed she would “rock up at the embassy” in Dili once again.
Thankfully, a friend of a friend of a friend picked up the ABC broadcast, which carried the news that this would not be the case in 2022.
But the AEC’s offer of home delivery of postal votes has done little to reassure Hungerford.
“We only got street names in [parts of] Dili about three years ago, and we’ve got no street numbers,” she says. “So I don’t know how a delivery driver would find you.”
Instead of waiting to find out, the aid worker turned to the Dili grapevine for help.
Hungerford’s friend is arranging for another person to bring over their ballot and Hungerford has just enough time to have hers sent to his Melbourne home.
Her friend June Norman may not have been so fortunate. Norman has also voted several times before from Dili, once travelling five hours from the remote mountains to the capital to cast her vote.
The octogenarian describes herself as a full-time activist and proudly claims to be the first person arrested for protesting against coal seam gas extraction in Australia.
But after only applying for a postal vote on Monday, Norman fears she may have left it too late to receive her ballot in time. She would have acted sooner, but only found out about the changes thanks to word of mouth.
It is not only older voters, however, who are sweating on the arrival of their ballots.
Stephanie Lewis, 33, has voted in every state and federal election since she moved to Vancouver in 2016.
Lewis received a letter on 15 April from the AEC confirming she enrolled as an overseas voter yet, as of Tuesday afternoon, “no ballot ever came”.
For many living overseas, the last two years have driven home the impact of politics on their daily lives.
Melanie Layugan, 31, an English teacher living in Tokyo, says the issues she cares most about are student debt and housing.
Layugan is enrolled to vote in the most marginal seat in the country, Macquarie. In 2019, Labor won it by just 371 votes.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Layugan has yet to receive her ballot.
“I’m really nervous that it’s not going to arrive,” she says.
“I guess I just actually care about what the country’s going to be when I come back.”
