Winston Ow's flight was booked, and his bag was packed but on this trip to Kuala Lumpur, there was something unusual in his luggage.

When the Malaysian parliament was dissolved last month ahead of this week's election, anyone in Australia who was eligible to vote had to act quickly.

Mr Ow immediately booked a flight from Sydney to KL so he could have his say. He ended up taking more than 100 other ballots with him.

Malaysians in Australia did not have to fly home to vote — there was a postal option — but the 11-day election campaign made that a logistical nightmare.

"Quite a number of them [expatriates] applied for the postal votes to be sent to them but unfortunately many of them received their ballot papers very late," Mr Ow said.

More than 3,600 people in Australia were registered to vote in the Malaysian election, which was held on Wednesday and delivered a shock return to power for former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Most papers came late last week, some have yet to arrive.

Concerned about missing the chance to vote, Australia's Malaysian communities set up Facebook pages to connect voters with "vote runners", who would be prepared to carry their paperwork

Jun Keoo, from Sydney, was among those searching for a way to have her say.

"I received my ballot on Tuesday morning and we were supposed to get it back at the end of the day on Tuesday," she said.

"I managed to get hold of the runner, he was departing at 10 o'clock and I had to get it to him at 8:30 so it was a pretty tight race."

Winston Ow's finger was still covered in ink used to vote when he returned to Sydney. ( ABC News: Michelle Cheng )

Mr Ow was among the last of the runners to leave Sydney and ended up with 110 votes in his backpack.

"Some of the people who wanted to vote came to my office, some of them drove up to my door, literally, some of them met me at the train station, some of them met me in food courts, in Macdonald's, the last group met me at the airport itself," he said.

"I think about 30 or 40 people met me at the airport."

Not everyone took hundreds of votes. Angel Tan, 44, had only five with her on her flight, but said she decided to make the journey because her electorate was in a "critical area".

"Although it's just one of my votes, it might not make a lot of difference, but probably I can help," she said.

Angel Tan heard the result of the election as she was flying back to Australia.

"So the pilot announced it around, probably around 6, 7 o'clock in the morning and everyone just clapped their hands, like everyone was so happy about the result," she said.