Keith Lyons: 3 million most telling number in voter lottery

For most Kiwi households, voting in this weekend's general election will be just one of the many tasks to be undertaken on a normal busy Saturday, including watching the kids' sport, mowing the lawn and working through the many sections of the Weekend Herald.

However, not everyone can share in this triennial ritual of voting in person, as hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are travelling and living overseas.

New Zealand citizens who have been back "home" in the past three years, and permanent residents who have been in New Zealand for the past year, can vote - in theory.

In practice, it can be a bit of a challenge. Despite four different ways of voting, a voting period of more than two weeks and the ability to electronically download voting papers, taking part in the process can be demanding and costly.

In China, the world's largest un-democratic nation, logistics and culture make voting a trying experience. Unable to vote before I left New Zealand in early August, I thought it wouldn't be too much trouble to download my voting papers and post them from China's south-western province of Yunnan.

I figured it would be easier to post my papers to the capital, Beijing, than to travel more than 2500km for three days by bus and train to vote in person at the New Zealand Embassy.

At an internet cafe I logged onto the elections.govt.nz website and, after entering my details, managed to download my voting papers. That's when my problems began.

First, the computer couldn't open the file, then wouldn't let me download Adobe Reader either. I tried another internet cafe, which had the program but had no printer.

Next day I headed to the cobblestone and canal town of Lijiang, where I found a cafe but encountered my third difficulty: the internet was so slow I couldn't download my voting papers.

At an internet arcade devoted to gaming, I downloaded the file but then found there was neither a printer nor a way of getting the file onto a plug-in memory stick.

It was only later in the week, when I got to the Tibetan town of Zhongdian, recently renamed Shangri-la, that the planets must have been aligned in my favour.

At an internet parlour I was able to download, open, read and store the papers on my memory stick. At a print shop nearby, a wiry man with a cigarette dangling from his lips got his teenage son to print the instructions, declaration and voting form. By this time, there wasn't enough time to post the papers to Beijing. I'd sent postcards that took three weeks to get from Zhongdian to Lijiang - a distance of 200km - so didn't like the chances of getting anything to the Chinese capital in a week.

The only option left was to fax the papers to New Zealand. While Shangri-la has an airport, new hotels with room service, oxygen for the altitude and electric blenders for making yak-butter tea, fax machines are as hard to find as the real Shangri-la.

"Send fax New Zealand?" asked one cafe owner. "Much money. Maybe 20 yuan ($24) for a page at a hotel, if you are guest." That was how much her staff earned for a day's work. Before I could find a place to take my papers and money, I first had to decide on which party and candidate to vote for. At my guesthouse, staff gathered around to see the lauwai (foreigner) write in English with his left hand.

"Do you really have a president who is a woman? I think it is very good," said Liu Yi Ling, who has the English name Sharlene. "What's this?"

I find "vote" in the English-Chinese dictionary. Her fellow workers nod approvingly.

Although China has a form of democratic socialism with a certain level of grassroots democracy, provincial and national government are dominated by the Communist Party.

Sharlene looks at the voting papers. "It looks like the lottery you can buy in the street. You pick which ones you like and then you see if they give you money." Her boss recognises the logo of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party - hemp grows wild in Yunnan and is used for rope and clothing.

"Who are these people?" Sharlene asks. They are intrigued there is someone from the "Anti-capitalist alliance".

"We tried that, but it didn't work," says a man they call Uncle.

After outlining the virtues of a candidate, Sharlene is perplexed. "So you live in area with the brainiest people in New Zealand and have to choose from a pizza man whose business didn't work and a school teacher who is large?"

I have until 3pm Beijing time (7pm New Zealand time) on Saturday to find a fax machine that can send my papers to the Chief Electoral Office in Wellington.

It will be just one of nearly 3 million votes - I want it to count.