When Nazy Toma fled Iraq in 1995, she left a country where she felt her vote meant very little.
"It is not the same as in Iraq. Here we feel we have the freedom to vote," Ms Toma says.
Despite living in Australia for nearly 20 years, Ms Toma didn't know how to vote.
"I was thinking if I put number one on the top, it means one, two, three, four, five. But now I learn if I want the person who I am voting for, it doesn't have to mean the number one is on the top."
The Australian Electoral Commission has launched 10 in-language education programs in a bid to teach voters with limited English skills how to vote.
The languages in the program include Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Arabic.
At a voter education session for Melbourne's Arabic community, residents were taught how to make their vote count.
Community Education Officer, Adibeh Abdo-Attia says the education sessions can demonstrate how different voting systems are internationally.
"The campaign is different, the system is different. In one of my sessions, it was just for a joke, and just to pass their culture, he said look I'm not going to vote, unless whoever pays me more, then I will vote," she says.
With the exception of two Arabic language educators in Melbourne, all of the language programs conducted by the Electoral Commission are based in Sydney's west.
Director of Education and Community Engagement at the Australian Electoral Commission, Beatrice Barnett says the group doesn't have the resources to cover the cost of more.
"Our resources are put where there's the greatest need. Now we've looked at the demography and the informality rates and there are pockets of that in Western Sydney, and in some parts of Melbourne. And it's related to language proficiency."
And while the value of all votes is supposed to be equal, some community groups say focusing language education purely around where there are the most informal votes, ignores smaller communities who may have greater needs.
Haliluel Gebreselassie is a spokesperson for the Commonwealth Ministerial Consultative Committee on Africa.
"I can understand sometimes we go by numbers but also at the same time we need to look at sometimes your disadvantage is happening even if your number is small and a minority," Mr Gebreselassie says.
"Those communities probably have higher barriers than others."
Mr Gebreselassie says the lack of African languages in the national program ignores the needs of a group of growing communities in Australia.
"We are talking about now, very large number of African communities are settling in Australia. We are talking about over 337,000 African-born Australians are living in Australia. So this number does not include their kids and their immediate family members. So it's not a small number, it's a large number and we need to look at this number very seriously so that we can provide appropriate support to the community."
Beatrice Barnett from the Australian Electoral Commission says that the Commission's collection of 28 in-language voting information sheets could help those communities.
"Certainly, we're finding that some of the African communities are emerging now and sort of appearing in our statistics to the point that we are starting to service their need. We are translating our material into some African languages," she says.
"And certainly I would predict that if this program was running at the next election in three years' time, we would have more emphasis, or perhaps a shift in emphasis to those groups."
However, Mr Gebreselassie says information sheets cannot provide the same level of interaction as voting education classes.
"You may receive translated material sometimes, but, you may have a question. The translated material will not answer that question for you. But when you are in the community education, you have a question and then you raise your hand and ask the question."
But for at least some of those with access to voting education, there is a new feeling of confidence heading into the polling booths this time.
Ms Toma says thanks to the Arabic education program, she now knows how to vote.
"In the past, I wasn't sure I did it correctly. But from now and later I will be doing not only for myself, I'm going to pass the information as well to my family."
