American expats horrified by the thought of Donald Trump as president say they are making a special effort to cast absentee ballots from New Zealand.
An estimated eight million US citizens live overseas – about 21,500 of them in New Zealand.
RNZ was unable to find any New Zealand-based voters who said they were casting their ballot for controversial Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump – but plenty said they had been spurred to vote against him.
Some had not voted in an American election for years.
“I didn’t vote the last two [presidential] elections,” Wellington bar owner Rose Andaloro, 32, said.
“I don’t like to admit that, but it actually was very challenging.”
But her fear of Mr Trump being elected was enough to motivate her this year.
“She apparently still has her position, which is nuts,” Ms Andaloro said.
Advocacy website Avaaz was among those encouraging expats to enrol and vote, launching an online tool to simplify the process.
Auckland music manager Ayisha Jaffer said she was reminded to enrol after seeing ads for such tools on social media.
“They said, like, ‘Don’t let Trump get in! Register absentee ballot now! Eight million against Trump!’ So I clicked on one of these websites and they made it really straightforward and easy to enrol.'”
She had been encouraging other Americans she knew in New Zealand to enrol, even though recent polls had shown the gap between Mr Trump and his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton widening.
“I’m a little bit worried…