For Thai Australian Kanokwan Ngamlertnapaporn, voting in past elections has been a daunting process.
With limited English proficiency, she has struggled to fill out ballot papers correctly.
"I get very confused because [there are] so many papers, so many numbers and I don't know what to do," she said.
Ms Ngamlertnapaporn said she had previously voted solely to avoid getting a fine.
"I had no idea [what I was doing]," she said.
"I just ticked [the boxes] for who I thought might be good, but actually I had no idea."
In preparation for the NSW election this week, she joined a voting class in Sydney for people from non-English-speaking backgrounds.
The classes are part of a NSW Electoral Commission program that aims to reduce high rates of informal voting — where ballots are ruled invalid because they are completed incorrectly or left blank.
With the election predicted to be a close-run contest and Western Sydney a key battleground, Andrew Jakubowicz, a sociology professor at the University of Technology Sydney, said every vote cast would be crucial.
"There are a number of electorates with significant proportions of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds," he said.
"Their understanding of and participation in the whole electoral process will have quite significant impacts on exactly what happens with the election outcome."
Ethnic Communities Council NSW chair Peter Doukas said almost one in three people across the state were born overseas and it was critical to ensure their voices were heard.
"Many people from a non-English-speaking background get a fine for not voting … and others simply don't understand how to properly engage," he said.
In the 2019 NSW election, the highest rates of informality were recorded in culturally diverse seats in Sydney's west and south-west.
More than 6 per cent of votes for the Legislative Assembly in the electoral districts of Bankstown, Lakemba and Auburn were deemed invalid.
The figures were nearly double the state average of 3.46 per cent.
Fairfield and Liverpool rounded out the top-five districts for informality rates, with over 5 per cent of ballots in each area not counted.
Lisa Hill, professor of politics at the University of Adelaide, said the complexity of the voting system posed challenges for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.
"The standard for formality in state elections is different from the standard for formality in the federal election … this contributes to unintentional informal voting," she said.
"One thing we could do is bring all the standards into alignment."
Of the 162,897 informal Legislative Assembly ballot papers cast in 2019, more than 85 per cent were left blank.
Professor Hill said while a blank ballot was often recorded as an "intentional" informal vote, language barriers might lead some CALD people to vote this way unintentionally.
"It can signify that the person is just looking at the ballot and thinking, 'I just don't know what to do,'" she said.
"It could just mean resignation, giving up or despair."
A similar trend was observed in the 2022 federal election, with seats in western and south-west Sydney recording the highest informality rates in the country.
Around one in 10 votes in Blaxland, Fowler and McMahon were invalid, which was twice the national rate of 5.19 per cent.
In both the NSW electoral division of Bankstown and the federal seat of Blaxland, more than 70 per cent of people had parents who were born overseas, and more than 75 per cent of people spoke a language other than English at home.
"It's really important to speak to [CALD] people and explain how to vote formally so that their vote isn't lost," Professor Hill said.
At a Mandarin voting class for members of the Chinese community in Eastwood, voter Mary Zhang said she had previously relied on her husband's help to cast a ballot.
"I can't figure out how the [ballot paper] boxes need to be filled," she said.
"Even if I just know how to fill out the boxes would mean I can be independent and not be so lost without my husband next to me."
The NSW Electoral Commission's Vote Talk program includes podcasts and a series of voter-awareness videos translated into seven languages.
But Professor Hill said the "digital divide" meant most CALD voters would not be able to access translated materials available online.
The electoral commission said more than 6,000 bilingual staff would be working at polling booths on Saturday.
"We endeavour to place staff with language fluency in addition to English at voting centres in communities where language support is required," the commission said in a statement.
"These staff are identified by in-language badges to offer assistance to electors."
