Joanne Wood, an Australian banker who has lived in Shanghai for nearly two decades, has been watching the Australian federal election closely for months.
Keeping up with election news and talking about it with her Australian friends and family has helped her feel less lonely and more connected during Shanghai's strict lockdown.
So finding out that it was going to be practically impossible to vote this month was "a huge disappointment".
"I'm proud to be Australian. I feel fortunate that I was born Australian [and] that my voice can be heard and is welcomed," Ms Wood told the ABC.
Shanghai has been under a city-wide lockdown for more than a month, which has led to massive delivery delays and food shortages, and the government has given no indication of when it will be lifted.
The Australian Consulate-General in Shanghai, where Australians would normally be able to vote in person, has been closed since April.
On May 6, the Consulate-General advised on WeChat that Australians in the city should fill out an overseas notification form, which "confirms the voter is unable to vote due to being overseas".
Those who still wanted to vote would have to register for a postal ballot, which the Australian Election Commission (AEC) would send from Australia via its "point-to-point courier delivery solution".
Voters would then have to return the completed ballot to the AEC or other Australian missions in China.
Ms Wood said she did not think this would work.
"Your courier can't even deliver to your residential compound the basic groceries, [like] food and drinking water," she said.
"How on earth are you going to get voting papers from Australia to here?
"They [AEC] may be able to get them in to China, but could they get them to your door with all of the different checkpoints we have for COVID? I just didn't see that the timing would work.
"Even if you did manage to get it through international courier in time, filled it in, getting it back out into Australia in time was going to be as much of an issue."
"Understanding that, I just took what I felt to be the easiest path of least resistance," she said, by filling out a form indicating she would be unable to vote.
At the 2019 federal election, 9,177 votes were cast in-person in China, including 5,428 votes cast in Hong Kong.
The AEC also sent out 3,768 postal votes to Australians in mainland China, including 1,728 in Shanghai.
'It is impossible to vote in this election'
Tina Lan, another Australian citizen in Shanghai, said she did not believe it would be possible for her to vote either, even if there was time for the papers to go from Australia to China and back again.
The AEC can accept ballot papers up to 13 days following election day.
Ms Lan and her family were released from one of the city's quarantine facilities just last week and they are still required to remain at home.
They were not even allowed to pick up mail or delivered items.
“Everything makes me feel like it is impossible to vote in this election."
She added that she was confused about the voting rules.
"No-one comes to tell you which day you need to send a letter and how far in advance you need to send it," she said.
"There is no way to even estimate how much time these things would take at the moment."
An AEC spokesperson said there was not much more they could do to facilitate postal voting if the compounds were restricted from receiving mail and courier deliveries.
"Information about the federal election and participating in the election is being distributed by consulates, through the AEC's website and social media channels and via an advertising campaign," the spokesperson said.
"If digital channels are restricted by a foreign country to the extent where this information is restricted, and postal services are also restricted, there is again not many, if any, other avenues available."
The spokesperson added that voting was not compulsory for Australians overseas, so anyone who missed the deadline would not be penalised.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said they were "continuing to encourage Australians in China who have not already done so to register for a postal vote".
That included Australians planning to vote in person in Beijing and Guangzhou — where Australia has an embassy and consulate — "in case this option becomes unavailable at short notice".
Simon Lance, a Western Australian businessman who has lived in Shanghai for more than 10 years, decided it was worth registering for a postal vote.
He received confirmation from Australia Post that his voting package was on its way on May 7.
Mr Lance told the ABC that residents in his compound were due to be able to receive some deliveries starting today, but he was not sure if Australia Post deliveries would get through.
"That's obviously a key component of it," he said.
Why does Australia need to engage overseas voters?
Yee-Fui Ng, deputy director of the Australian Centre for Justice Innovation at Monash University, said overseas voters were an essential part of the Australian community and including them in elections was critical.
"There is a balance between a public health crisis and exercising a fundamental democratic right," said Dr Ng, who will also vote overseas while visiting the United States.
"I think the AEC should facilitate voting as much as possible, within the constraints of the public health emergency."
Chiara De Lazzari, a research fellow from the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, told the ABC that countries like Australia that allow overseas citizens to vote in the national elections "should also be responsible to maintain a form of connection with those citizens".
However, she acknowledged that given the current circumstances, Australia lacked the capacity to "evaluate the situation in each and every place where residents live".
"For instance, Shanghai is one of the few places in lockdown while most people around the world are conducting a semi-normal life with very limited restrictions," she said.
"This causes significant challenges for countries that want to ensure citizens' participation from abroad."
Dr De Lazzari said an online system would make voting easier for overseas Australians.
"In the future, we should hope for the establishment of some form of electronic voting that will overcome all the logistic issues caused by the pandemic, in the circumstances in which people live in remote areas, or just to facilitate the voting process from abroad," she said.
While online voting could be a potential option, Dr Ng warned it could be vulnerable to software manipulation, identity fraud, data breaches or information theft.
So far, the only country in the world that permits electronic voting is Estonia, where voters can cast their ballots in local, national and European elections online with their personal digital devices.
