The indications are that many of you will already have voted - but most won't.
On the latest figures on Friday, 146,289 people had cast their votes in pre-polling stations - that's 46 per cent of the electorate. On top of that, 25,000 postal ballots had been issued. So around two in every five Canberra voters won't vote on the big day itself.
This is actually a drop from the last ACT election when 70 per cent of votes were cast before election day. But the reason for the high number then was probably COVID. Voters went to pre-polling stations early to avoid the crowds on the day itself.
But that was a blip. Ever since 2012, the proportion of voters doing the deed early has risen, according to the ACT Electoral Commission. In 2012, it was 22 per cent of voters; in 2016 it was just under 30 per cent; then there was the COVID surge - and this year, it was just under 40 per cent. The trend is upward.
And as the number of ACT voters not turning out on the day has fallen, the number of polling stations open on the day has also fallen: in the 2020 election, there were 82 voting places. This time, there are 55.
The ACT Electoral Commission said that the cut was because of a "growing preference by electors for early voting".
"These considerations ensure the efficient, ethical and appropriate use of public resources in delivering the election, while still maintaining the high standard of trusted, transparent, secure, and accessible electoral services," the commission said.
The main rationale for making it easier for people to vote before the big day was because the way we live has changed dramatically since compulsory voting was introduced in 1924: we now travel more and we work more at weekends. The reasoning is that the easier it is for people to vote, the better it is for democracy.
But there is another argument, a counter-argument.
Some feel that by spreading the voting over many days, its importance has been diminished.
On this argument, not having a single day to vote means we lose the sense of a nation participating together in a democracy.
When a nation turned out on the one day, runs the argument, it felt like a celebration of democracy but now that grand feeling is lost. The great symbol was the democracy sausage but the sausage is fizzling out.
Giralang Primary School, for example, used to host polling day but has been excluded this time round, as have places like Oaks Estate.
"I think people want to be part of a community. They want to connect," the school's P&C president Kristine Evans said.
"It takes away from the flavour of who we are as Australian citizens, to go down and vote and get your democracy sausage. It takes away from the sense of community."
Or think of areas like Oaks Estate on the periphery of Canberra, geographically and some there would say mentally as well. Voting day was a unifying day but no more, or not this time.
"There is an argument against early voting," Sydney University political scientist Peter Chen said.
He thought the argument over whether there should be more early voting as a choice between convenience for voters and the cohesion of the country: "It undermines an important social cohesion process, emphasising collectivity and equality, which is the point of having elections in the first place. Some people feel that by removing the 'gathering together' aspect of elections, pre-poll, postal and online voting also undermine a key civil ritual".
Either way, there's no doubting the trend - more people vote before the big day now than they did ten years ago, and this comes as trust in democracy frays. A survey by the ANU last year found that fewer Australians were "very satisfied" with democracy (14 per cent) than were 15 years ago (nearly a quarter).
The Museum of Australian Democracy concluded earlier this year: "Despite 25 years of economic growth - which traditionally means increased satisfaction - Australians have grown more distrustful of politicians, sceptical about democratic institutions and disillusioned with democratic processes."
The ANU's elections guru Ian McAllister said that the decline in Australia is unlikely to be solely because the importance of the day itself is waning but it may be a factor.
Professor McAllister said that other countries were talking about having a Democracy Day "and that should be on election day".
