Migrants offered 'how to vote' classes

The Australian Electoral Commission has been touring the country, holding 'how to vote' classes in languages other than English for migrants ahead of the election on Saturday.

Research from Australia's last election in 2007 shows that the instruction cards distributed with ballots were not very useful for many non-English speaking voters.

This time, the AEC is spending $3 million on advertisements and foreign language forums to lower the alarming number of informal votes cast in ethnically diverse electorates.

At the last election, one third of the entire country's invalid or informal votes- some 200,000 - were lodged in western Sydney.