With the federal election landing on the cusp of the NT dry season the electoral commission is predicting less interstate visitors posting their vote early.
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For the elderly travellers road tripping across the NT, Katherine's pre-poll voting centre is the only place to cast their vote away from home.
On the second day of early voting, this year at the former Big Ass Grill, lines of early voters have been snaking out the door.
But the numbers will not reach what we saw in the 2016 election, which landed in peak tourist season, on July 2.
Yesterday, 260 people voted in Katherine.
"May is on the cusp of good weather and we are not seeing the amount of voters we would usually see at a later date in the year," Australian Electorate Commission officer for the NT Geoff Bloom said.
"In 2016 the election was held in the middle of the NT dry season and that was the largest amount of interstate visitors we have ever seen.
From the first day it was clear we didn't issue the usual amount of early votes to grey nomads and that trend is likely to continue.
- Geoff Bloom, Australian Electorate Commission officer for the NT
"We are just not going to experience those numbers this year because the dry season is not yet in full force."
Early voting is seeing an upward trend, with more and more people travelling and tied to work commitments, Mr Bloom said.
"We issued the highest number of early votes in 2016, five per cent up from the 2013 election.
"We are typically seeing a gradual increase in people choosing to vote early election to election."
While interstate votes are likely to be down this year across the board, Mr Bloom said the trend in early NT voters is in line with expectations.
At the Katherine pre-poll voting centre this morning was Labor volunteer Gary Hillen.
Offering up his time to hand out polling information every year for more than 30 years, the Katherine local said he is expecting early voting to ramp up next week.
"Yesterday morning and this morning were quite busy, mostly with tourists, but we won't see big numbers of people until next week," he said.
People are eligible to make an early vote for a number of reasons including work commitments and travelling interstate.
Early voting is open in Second Street until the election date on May 18.
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