Early Tamworth voters face pre-polling rush of up to half an hour

From the moment the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) staff opened the doors of the temporary Peel Street office at 8.30am, there was a cue, which only got longer throughout the morning.

At one point it stretched across three storefronts, and AEC staff were doing crowd control to allow foot traffic to pass by.

One Labor volunteer, who said he'd been handing out how-to-vote cards for two decades, estimated the line was up to 60 people deep.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said.

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A Nationals volunteer was also surprised by the first-day rush.

"This is much more than what we saw at the state election pre-polling, probably two or three times more," he told the Leader.

In New England, roughly one in three people cast their vote before election day.

At the 2017 by-election, 32,482 people voted early in New England, or just over 29 per cent of the electorate, including almost 13,500 people in Tamworth alone.

In 2016, there as a similar number of early voters, with 30,641 people pre-polling, including about 14,200 in Tamworth.

The AEC pre-polling booth, located at 358 Peel Street in the old Blooms Chemist shop, will be open most weekdays, right up until election day on May 18.

Pre-polling opened in Armidale earlier this week, while Tenterfield, Inverell and Glen Innes will open early voting on May 18.

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