Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers said postal voters should complete their ballot papers, sign the envelope and have it witnessed, and mail it before election day on July 2.

"Both your House of Representatives and Senate ballot papers must be returned sealed inside the provided envelope to the AEC for your vote to count," Mr Rogers said.

“At the end of Thursday we had processed close to 1.4 million postal vote applications, but only received around 500,000 completed postal votes back from voters.

“Clearly many postal voters need to act now and not miss out.”

Postal vote applications may be lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission until 6pm on June 29 but Mr Rogers said time is running out.

“If you need a postal vote, don’t leave it to the very last minute and risk missing out,” he said.

Mr Rogers said there was also the option of voting in person at an early polling centre if people were worried about their postal vote arriving in time. 

The locations and opening hours of early voting centres are available at www.aec.gov.au or by phoning 13 23 26.

Postal vote application forms are available at www.aec.gov.au/pva or from any Australia Post outlet or electoral commission office, or by phoning 13 23 26.