From Outback to Antarctica, Australian votes roll in

SYDNEY: From the harsh desert Outback to the frozen reaches of Antarctica, Australians at remote locations have been casting their votes ahead of Saturday's national election.
Close to 2.2 million ballot papers had been handed in at pre-polling centres by mid-week, with small teams travelling across the vast country to ensure everyone eligible can vote.
On Antarctica, expeditioners at Australia's Davis Station voted on the sea ice in front of the research station, where temperatures are around minus 20 degrees Celsius.
"I am glad that I can still have my say whilst being so far away from it all," said Aaron Stanley, who works for the bureau of meteorology at Davis but was tasked with helping oversee the vote.
"I've voted while on holiday in Malta before, but this is totally going to top the best voting location."
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), which administers the poll for the 15.6 million citizens registered to vote, said there were four Antarctic polling sites with 46 people registered.
Of these, the most far flung is Mawson Station which is a whopping 5,475km from the southern Australian city of Hobart.
While the Antarctic voting is handled by current residents, the AEC has also sent 41 mobile teams by road and air to more than 400 remote locations around the country.
Among these sites was Bulman, a small isolated cattle station town some 300 kilometres from Katherine, in the Northern Territory, which has just 130 registered voters.
But there are many other tiny communities, including Camel Camp which has 23 and Koongie Park in Western Australia which has 39, the AEC's Northern Territory manager Mick Sherry said.
"A large proportion of people who vote via the AEC's remote mobile polling service live in indigenous communities, with the majority in the Northern Territory," he added.
Australians living overseas have not been forgotten, with 94 voting centres set up around the world, from the Australian High Commission in London to the nation's embassy in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator. — AFP.