Romel Lalata was so eager to vote that he enrolled the day he became an Australian citizen.
For Mr Lalata, who came to Australia as an international student in 2015, the opportunity to vote had been seven long years in the making.
"I told myself one day I'll be a voter," he said.
"I'll be putting down my choice of leaders who will determine Australia's future and I want to be able to do that."
But his introduction to voting in Australia began with an unfortunate mistake.
After enrolling in 2021, Mr Lalata forgot to change his details when he moved from NSW to Canberra and was fined for not voting in a recent NSW local election.
This time he is determined to be as prepared as possible.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) around 440,000 new Australian citizens will cast a vote for the first time this federal election.
"It is a bit difficult finding information about how to vote," Mr Lalata said.
Mr Lalata is researching online, finding articles which explain preferential voting and visiting the AEC website.
He also viewed the voting information the AEC translated into Filipino, but said it was written using very formal language and the tone was not culturally appropriate for the average reader.
'You feel your vote doesn't matter'
Accessing information in languages other than English — especially around party policies — is challenging, 22-year-old Amro Zoabe said.
Mr Zoabe, who arrived as a refugee from Syria in 2016, said his parents relied on him and his brother to understand the political system and the candidates because they were still learning English.
"Even the big two political parties don't have many materials available in [other] languages, which is very disappointing, because it makes you feel that your vote doesn't matter," he said.
Mr Zoabe, who lives in Wollongong, said he learnt about the electoral system in high school and was searching for whatever he needed to know ahead of the election online.
But he wants more policy information, especially for some of the smaller parties.
"I'm very interested in the smaller parties … [but] I'm not able to find the clear policies," he said.
As a first-time voter concerned with housing affordability and climate change, Mr Zoabe wants to make sure his vote counts.
"I witnessed firsthand what the absence of democracy looks like," Mr Zoabe said of his childhood in war-torn Syria.
"I can really appreciate the benefits [of democracy] and I want to participate in it as much as possible."
'Our chance to do something'
When Trisha Lopes was growing up in India she listened to her parents passionately discussing politics.
"My dad voted for a different party and my mum voted for a different party," she said.
Now an Australian citizen, Ms Lopes is busy building a knowledge of Australian politics and is feeling "overwhelmed".
"I haven't grown up listening to different political parties [in Australia], so I do not quite know what the history is," she said.
"So it's a lot of research, a lot of trying to understand and decipher through the policies, a lot of work to do."
Ms Lopes said a friend suggested listening to the budget speech as a place to start.
"I tried but sort of fell asleep halfway through," she said.
"I really wished that there was a one stop shop for young migrants or even first-time voters … which gives you a very easy to understand breakdown of what each party stands for."
Ms Lopes has tried Vote Compass, and recommended it as an important "process of self discovery" for people trying to decide who to vote for.
"I was way off where I had expected myself to be," she said.
Ms Lopes spent many years living in Australia as a permanent resident without voting rights — something she believes should change.
Now she said she finally had the chance "to actually do something … [to] make sure that the future looks a lot closer to what we envision it to be".
Political representation for the voices of migrants and women of colour is one issue she is passionate about.
An early vote
In Werribee, on Melbourne's western fringe, Natalia Nuyerepon voted early.
When the election takes place on May 21 she will be celebrating Ramadan in Indonesia.
The opportunity to vote early is something Ms Nuyerepon appreciates about Australia's electoral system compared to Indonesia, the country of her birth.
While she admitted she was still not familiar with Australian politics, Ms Nuyerepon planned to vote for a candidate she thinks would prioritise prosperity, including for middle-income earners.
Ms Nuyerepon, who works as a chef, wants easier access to medical support, jobs, and education, for when she has children in the future.
For Natalia Zhukova, who immigrated from Ukraine with her Australian husband five years ago, geopolitics is influencing her first vote as an Australian citizen.
"Support to Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees is very important," Ms Zhukova said.
Unlike Australia, voting is voluntary in Ukraine and there is no preferential system, so Ms Zhukova has been speaking to her husband to understand the electoral process in Australia.
“My husband is very supportive, so any issues I can ask him," she said.
For Yitin Han, who has migrated from China, speaking with colleagues has helped her feel less "perplexed" about voting.
The 26-year-old junior doctor, who is currently interning in Horsham in regional Victoria, has started learning about Australia's electoral system via "one on one lessons on voting" from colleagues at the hospital.
However, she said she still had "absolutely no idea" about what the exact process of voting would be for her.
Ms Han said she was also confused about where her electorate was.
"I don't know whether I belong to where I usually live, or where I live currently," she said.
Like many new voters the ABC spoke to, Ms Han said she wanted to find accessible information about government and party policies which she could base her voting choice on.
"I don't feel like I've been given enough information about each party or each individual candidate at all," she said.
Risks of misinformation
According to Esther Chan, Australian bureau editor of FirstDraft, a non-profit organisation researching online misinformation and providing media literacy training, if credible information isn't easily accessible there is a risk voters could be more easily exposed to misinformation and disinformation.
Ms Chan said the AEC was doing an excellent job of tackling the spread of misinformation on mainstream social media platforms like Twitter.
But diaspora communities who may not use those platforms could be more vulnerable to misinformation.
"Communities that don't use [mainstream Australian] platforms that much, they just may not have seen the same amount of information," Ms Chan said.
Ms Chan said in the past six months FirstDraft had identified the circulation of misleading election narratives around voter fraud in Australia, similar to those which appeared during the last US election.
It is something which concerns first-time voter Romel Lalata and he is urging others like him to check information and "vote wisely".
Mr Lalata plans to continue to follow policy announcements and election coverage in the lead up to May 21 and vote on election day.
