On the other hand, it is the voters of Heathcote who are most likely to wait until election day to cast their vote.

At the last NSW election in 2019, 19,822 residents in the Shellharbour electorate voted early.

Read more: Voting early in the Illawarra? Here's all the information you need

Add to that the 1065 who opted for a postal vote, and it means 36 per cent of the electorate didn't enter a booth on election day.

One-third of Kiama residents voted early too - in 2019, they had 16,720 pre-pollers, combined with 1489 postal votes cast.

Neither sitting member has any issues with one-third of their electorate choosing to vote before election day.

"If people want to do a pre-poll that's what it's there for," said Shellharbour's Anna Watson.

"You don't have to have an excuse any more like before. People's lives are pretty busy, they work all different hours and shifts and days - I don't have a problem with it."

Kiama MP Gareth Ward said he expected the trend towards early voting to continue.

"I think that while you do technically have to have a reason for early voting, I think it's fair to say that the commission generally applies a very liberal approach to verifying why people are voting," Mr Ward said.

"If you do have a reasonable excuse to vote early you should because you don't want to miss out on the day and you want to make sure your vote is cast and your voice is heard on important issues."

Lee Evans' seat of Heathcote had just 8437 pre-pollers and 1562 postal voters in 2019.

That equated to 18 per cent of the electorate, making it the lowest Illawarra seat when it came to early voting.

Mr Evans noted that the pre-poll period this year poll has been cut down to just seven days - compared to three weeks at last year's federal election, so he thought early voting was not going to have a "major impact" on this election.

"It got ridiculous - three weeks was just nuts," Mr Evans said.

"That's why it's gone the other way. I'm the chair of the Electoral Matters Committee, which deals with all this stuff and the Labor Party started the conversation, saying three weeks was just nuts, we can't manage it."

He also said an extended pre-poll period can have a negative effect on how candidates run their election campaign.

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