FOR thousands of people across the region, it's their preferred way to vote, but the NSW Nationals say the pre-polling period is too long.
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The party pledged to push for a week-long pre-polling period for state, federal and local government elections, after a grassroots movement from its members.
The number people pre-polling has been increasing rapidly at all tiers of government elections.
Earlier this year, more than a third of the Tamworth electorate's voters pre-polled for the NSW election, rising from 28.9 per cent of residents in 2015 to 34.5 per cent in 2019.
In Tamworth alone, just shy of 13,700 voted early, while almost 4000 people pre-polled in Gunnedah.
The early voting period has also been getting longer - earlier this year, New England pre-polling opened three weeks before the federal election.
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Historically, pre-polling favours incumbent politicians, but despite this Tamworth Nationals branch chair Ian Coxhead is one of the many party members who believe the early voting period needs to be reduced.
"You'd think the Nationals would want a longer pre-polling period," he said.
"In reality, it is an inconvenience to volunteers and a lot of things can happen in the final days of a campaign that need to be properly considered before voting.
"It is just too long. It needs to come back to a week."
Mr Coxhead said the other thing the "country needs to seriously consider" is online voting.
"That would reduce people lining up unnecessarily," he said.
"They could vote online at their leisure in the last week of the campaign.
"If we reduce the pre-polling period, then look at online voting, I think that would be the way to go."