There's no stopping a good keen voter

Garett Middelberg shows how he negotiated a railway crossing on the way to a polling booth. Picture / Dean Purcell

Garett Middelberg really wanted to vote - so much so that he slid into his electric wheelchair and took a hair-raising ride out of Middlemore Hospital to the nearest polling booth.

The trip - through rain, over bumpy railway lines and down an unlit lane - took half an hour and he arrived just in time, casting his ballot 5 minutes before the 7pm close of voting.

"I knew the election was going to be really close. I knew there was one party I didn't want to get in. That's why I went.

"My main reason for voting was to stick with the foreign policy we've got."

The 40-year-old self-employed burglar-alarm installer of Mt Albert said yesterday from the hospital that he could have voted on the wards earlier in the week, but was undecided, and had just come out of an operation on his heel.

He had surgery on Tuesday to clear an infection following treatment of a broken heel bone, caused in a fall from scaffolding.

Hospital staff told him on Saturday that someone would come to his ward to take his vote, but no one arrived.

"I think there were quite a few people in this hospital that wanted to vote but didn't. At least another seven on this ward didn't get to vote."

Around 5.30pm he headed to the foyer in his wheelchair, supplied by a friend, to investigate. After talking to more staff and then by phone to electoral officials - who suggested downloading forms from the internet - he realised he would miss out if he did not go to a booth straight away.

He learned that the nearest was at De La Salle College. It is less than a kilometre from the hospital, but Mr Middelberg did not know the area. He had to ask directions on the way and, new to a wheelchair, had to negotiate an uneven crossing over two railway lines.

"I had to go backwards over them, back wheel first. I didn't want to get stuck halfway. On the second one the tarmac had been pulled away."

Assistant chief electoral officer Robert Peden said electoral staff went to the hospital daily from last Monday to Friday and then Saturday afternoon to allow patients to vote. Friends and family could also deliver patients' completed ballots to polling places, but it was hard to cover every eventuality in hospitals.

"We don't like anybody missing out. We work very hard to make the voting service as accessible as possible."