The 33-year-old has been living in China’s Yangjiang, a prefecture-level city of 2.6 million people, for about a year. There is no polling station where she is based, and the nearest one is three hours away in Hong Kong.
“(Postal voting) saves time and I don’t have to take leave,” she said.
However, Ms Lieu, who had planned to send out her ballot early, still faced numerous obstacles, including having to go on a 21km drive downtown to send the overseas mail.
Even at the post office, the staff were not familiar with handling the return envelope, she said. In the end, she had to fork out 16 yuan (S$2.20) for registered mail to get her ballot sent back.
Yet, Ms Lieu said she is “more than happy to pay, because I wanted the vote to be counted for sure”.
“I thought the whole process could be better because – I’m not sure about other countries – but probably in China, language is also a barrier,” she added.