Election 2022: Inside the polling booth 16,000km from Australia

It has a sausage sizzle, pamphlets from the major parties and Aussie flags galore – but there’s something very different about this polling booth.

In a nation as vast and as sparsely populated as Australia, places to vote in the Federal Election vary hugely – from sport centres in CBDs to community halls on islands in the Torres Strait.

But perhaps none are quite as far away from the Australian mainland, or have quite as stunning a view, as the voting centre slap bang in the middle of New York’s Midtown.

Thirty stories up a skyscraper, expats and tourists can cast their vote for electorates 16,000km away while gazing out at the distinctly un-Australian vista of the Empire State Building.

“Back in Australia, I’m used to voting in a dingy school hall. Voting in a skyscraper is a very strange experience,” one Aussie who had just moved to New York told news.com.au.

In the 2019 election, there were no fewer than 85 overseas polling places, from Abu Dhabi to Zagreb. Most of those were contained within embassies, high commissions and consulates. There’s even one set up on the snow in Australia’s Antarctic base.

Around 19 consulates, embassies and high commissions are doubling up as polling booths during the Australian election. Picture: Benedict Brook

More than 60,000 Australians voted overseas in person at one of these location.

The numbers might sound large, but they only equal the population of around half an average electorate.

Not all countries are this accommodating at election time. The Brits, for example, can only vote by post or through a proxy if they are abroad.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), London was the most popular place for Australians to vote overseas with more than 13,000 of us debating whether to vote below or above the line at the grand Australia House on The Strand.

Other consulates which saw large numbers of voters in 2019 included Berlin, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore and San Francisco. A little over 3000 Aussies went through the doors of the New York consulate to make their political choices three years ago.

But this year there are far fewer places you can vote in person overseas. The AEC has shuttered some 67 international voting booths due to the pandemic, it stated.

That includes some of the busiest locations such as Hong Kong, Singapore and all of the Canadian booths. Affected Aussies were urged to complete postal votes instead.

Labor has questioned how Covid-19 could lead to the Los Angeles polling booth being closed but the San Francisco booth, for instance, to remain open.

Election pamphlets made it all the way to the US. Picture: Benedict Brook

Aussie vote with a New York view. Picture: Benedict Brook

Yes, there’s a sausage sizzle

Alongside San Fran, New York is one of only two places Australians can now vote in person in the US.

Outside, on 42nd Street, where the consulate is located, it could not be more New York. Yellow taxis barge their way down the road; bustling Grand Central station is one block away and the art deco Chrysler Building looms overhead.

The average American wandering into this building – which mainly houses the offices of a US bank – might not pay attention to the man clad in a purple vest standing by the lift. But any Australian who’s voted before will recognise the hue as that of the AEC.

When the lift doors open, many stories up in the consulate, it’s all disarmingly familiar.

Today, with the election just days away, it’s the smell hits you first. That unmistakeable polling day warming waft of cooked sausages. Even high above New York, many miles from Australia, there’s a sausage sizzle to make voters feel right at home.

And it’s not hot dog buns either. Consular staff have ensured white bread is available to go with the snags. Although, being the States, it’s that weird cakey American bread that has far too much sugar in it.

Seemingly to stress the point that this was Australian diplomatic territory, one contented voter was demolishing a democracy sausage while wearing an Akubra.

Sausage sizzle in the Australian consulate. Not a hot dog bun in site. Picture: Benedict Brook

Pamphlets for Labor and the Liberals were neatly stacked up, Australian and Indigenous flags were perched in a corner and ABC was playing on the television.

It was all very true blue and dinky-di until you looked out of the window at the sea of towers which New York is famous for.

It’s one of the strangest feelings to be voting for MPs in Australia while gazing on such a quintessentially American scene.

Traditionally, the busiest Australian overseas polling station is in London. Pictured here in 2016. Picture: Charles Miranda

This polling station had been open for almost two weeks for any Aussie voter who happened to be in town – tourist, visitor or long-term resident.

But it’s only in the last few days it really started to liven up. Small queues were now forming as staff went through the laborious task of ensuring every Australian was given exactly the right ballot papers for their electorate and state.

Unlike in Australia, voting wraps up on Friday in New York because if they opened on Saturday US time that would be after the polls closed Down Under.

Scientists at Casey, an Australian research station in Antarctica, line up to vote.

CBD electorates have the most overseas voters

The electorate with the most overseas voters is Sydney, followed by Canberra and Melbourne. Wentworth, covering Bondi in Sydney’s east, and North Sydney come next, with Macnamara which includes St Kilda in Melbourne, in sixth spot.

Once you’ve done your democratic duty, the slips of paper go in an envelope – not a ballot box – and are sent back to Australia.

Wendy and Michael Hillman had come over to New York from Perth to see family.

“It’s easier than voting in Australia. It’s quick and there’s no one from the parties hassling you as you go in,” Wendy said.

“And all the staff are so polite and helpful.”

Vote done and sausage snaffled, it was time to depart the consulate and possibly the nation’s most distant – maybe even the most glamorous – voting booth.

Outside, the cacophony of New York rolled back in. The constant beeping of cars, the ringing of bells as cyclists played chicken with the traffic, the garish signs enticing you to approach food carts for lunch.

And just like that, Australia suddenly felt very far away again.