Aged care residents and staff prepare for postal voting

In that time she's also worked polling booths at East Kempsey public school, sorted through votes and seen many state and federal candidates make their way to parliament.

"I've seen them come and I've seen them go," she said.

Now in her 80s, Mrs Seam is preparing her postal vote for the 2023 NSW state election.

"A lot of people, once they come into aged care, they don't think voting applies to them anymore," she said.

"But I think it's important to have your say, particularly since aged care is such an important question."

Mrs Seam has organised her own postal vote in the past with this year being no different.

For herself and other aged care residents, attending the polls on election day or using early voting booths isn't a viable option.

"Accessibility is a problem for us particularly on Saturday and postal voting is easier," she said.

Recreational Activities Officer team leader Danielle Dyce said that Mrs Seam is one of the residents that is most on top of things and that other generally don't register for postal voting.

"Rosemary is on the ball but she's not the norm," she said.

This election year at the Macleay Valley House has been particularly busy.

The aged care facility in the past has had election officials visit to allow residents to vote in person on site prior to election day as it was a declared facility.

Some nursing homes, convalescent homes, hospitals and aged care facilities are appointed by the NSW Electoral Commissioner as declared facilities.

Just over 50 declared facilities have been selected for the 2023 state election and the Macleay Valley House is not one of them.

Without being able tp physically vote and with online voting also not being used, staff at the facility have had to prepare postal votes for the residents.

"You can't just get a pile of postal vote forms, you have to individual apply for each person which is very difficult and we're in the process of doing that now," Ms Dyce said.

"Because we have residents with dementia it's also a bit tricky as to whether families have taken them off the roll so we've emailed all families asking them to get back to us whether their loved ones are off the roll, or whether they are taking them off the roll."

With approximately 126 residents at the facility, staff have taken on the additional workload of trying to determine which residents can and cannot vote.

"We're working through it but it's definitely not easy," Ms Dyce said.

"The tricky thing is that for some residents we will not know and the election will come and go because we won't hear back from the family.

We can't do it on their behalf and just assume, and we can't be seen trying to influence anybody in anyway so it's quite tricky for us."

Mrs Seam agreed it would be good if there was a physical polling booth available to residents but said she didn't mind doing the postal vote.

"I always find it's a very efficient system," she said.

"I think it's very important [to vote].

I think our electorate system is one of the best in the world."

Postal vote applications for the election close Monday March 20 at 6pm with receipt of postal votes closing Thursday April 6 2023.

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