Experts predicting rise in early and postal votes in Wagga for the 2023 state election

Wagga tops google searches for any NSW city for the search term "NSW state election" and the term "postal voting" is also trending, hinting that early voting is once again on people's minds.

People voting outside of election day reached new highs during last year's federal election, precipitated largely by the pandemic, but many voters simply enjoyed the ease of choosing when they voted.

The NSW electoral commission expects 30 per cent of the 5.5 million registered voters to vote in pre-polling this year, and 7 per cent by post.

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Charles Sturt University Political Science Professor Dominic O'Sullivan said early voting, while convenient, could be risky if you're a swing voter or an undecided.

"The trend, not just in NSW but all over in Australia, is the number of people who vote early has increased," he said.

"If you're undecided or one of these voters who changes from one election to the next you might want to wait for all of the information."

Increased numbers of early votes could also have an impact on the way campaigns are run, he said.

"It changes the nature of campaigning for political parties, if everyone votes on the one day then parties are directing the message to 100 per cent of the voters until the last minute," he said.

"That has implications for the timing of policy announcements ... I think campaigns become a bit more intense earlier on," he said.

In the 2019 state election, 29,696 of the total 50,185 votes counted in Wagga voted on election day.

Postal votes counted in at 1,365, while 14,688 people voted early at pre-polling.

Professor Rodney Smith, Interim Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at USYD, said this election will be slightly different in that voters will only have one week of pre-polling available to them and they will not have access to online voting.

But nonetheless, he expects early voting figures to rise.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it was even higher this time around," he said.

And in regional areas with lower density of polling places, early and postal voting is especially important, he said.

"The more people have to travel to get to a polling place on Election Day, the higher the rates of early voting, and to a lesser extent postal voting," he said.

"So, for people in regional and rural NSW, provision of early voting seems to be really important in allowing them that equal access to the ballot."

How to vote by post

To vote by post you must first check your eligibility at elections.nsw.gov.au.

You can vote by post if you:

You then need to apply online, over the phone, or by downloading the application on the elections NSW website and then sending it back to the electoral commission.

Postal voting applications opened on January 16 and close March 20 at 6pm.

Portal voting packs will be sent out from Monday March 13 and for your postal vote to be counted, your ballot papers and postal vote certificate must be sent back to the NSW electoral commission by 6pm, Thursday April 6.

For more information click here.

How to vote early in person

You may be eligible to vote at pre-polling for the same reasons as for postal voting.

Wagga voters can head to 53 Berry Street in the city and cast their early votes form March 18 through to election eve, March 24.

The pre-polling site is open Monday to Wednesday and Friday 8.30am to 5.30pm, Thursday 8.30am to 8.00pm and 9.00am to 5.00pm on Saturday.

The official polling day for the 2023 NSW state election takes place on March 25.

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