I remember while in custody, whenever an election would come around, I’d get stressed out.

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Elections never bring anything good for people engaged in the system. Elections mean mandatory sentencing, harsher bail laws, tougher parole laws and removal of remission laws.

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Never has an election come around in my time and we all got time off our sentence or an early release. Or even a sausage sizzle.

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Because we are a bargaining chip, a reliable chess piece to be played.

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So, when an election rolled around, I’d start doing head miles about what was in store. And the politicians and the commentators never disappointed. Hardline rhetoric and outright vitriol would spew forth. This year it’s youth crime and bail laws. Big ticket items. We all saw the result in the Northern Territory. Overflowing prisons. People being held in watch houses. The second highest incarceration rate in the world now.

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Every single election, more kicks while we are already down.

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Day after day I’d sit there, watching it all. Anxious and concerned. I honestly expected to never be free of the system. I expected them to pass a law forcing everyone to do their top and then complete a supervision order in the community on top of the original sentence.

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The two main parties competed to see who was tougher on us. The independents wouldn’t say much or would say it very quietly. It made it very easy for me to decide who to vote for in the end… I won’t say who. It’s a secret. But the name matched the colour of my clothes.

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The only problem was, I wasn’t allowed to vote – I had a ten- and half-year sentence. I wasn’t even sure why I couldn’t vote. Not what the real reason was, just that over a certain sentence and you are not eligible to vote.

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And that was also upsetting. To be told your opinion doesn’t matter, that you don’t matter. All this talk about being hard on criminals, hard on me. And I have no say in it.

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It was so isolating and hostile. This is the community I’m expected to one day rejoin?

I watched elections come and go. New mandatory sentences passed. Maximum terms increased for all sorts of crimes voters hate, like aggravated burglaries and carjacking. Every election I’d go and ask, can I vote this time? And get told, “I dunno”. Because no one knew. It was all incredibly confusing.

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Then I got my parole date. I was going. Not going home. Home didn’t exist anymore. Not after almost a decade. But I was going. Two weeks until my parole release date, I got to be able to vote. My chance to have my say had come.

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I went down to the visit centre and jumped in line. Full of self-righteous vengeance to finally have my say. I’d be heard this time. I wouldn’t be ignored. Only to find out, due to one of the past tough of crime campaigns, transgender prisoners can’t legally change their name in Victoria.

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So, my custody papers were in a different name to my voting name. I wasn’t allowed to vote, because I didn’t exist. It just wasn’t fair. Why do they do this to us? Are we not even people to them? They just play with our lives like it’s a game. It’s our lives.

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So I did what anyone would and had a sook. Because I’m on hormones and I’m allowed to sook.

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After my torrent of whining, they decided I could get an officer to swear I was the prisoner in question.

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After all of this, I was released. I got to experience voting while being on parole. I had the honour of voting in the council elections. And I had an ID with the same name as my voting name this time. Or so I thought.

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So, I happily went along to exercise my “God given constitutional right to have my say”. Only to be told, I’m not actually on the list of eligible voters, so I don’t get a say. They told me being on parole excluded me from voting still. I was in fact still serving my sentence and it was still too long.

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So, my vote in jail was also invalid. I was so upset and embarrassed I actually ran off in tears, leaving my license behind. I only noticed I had left it behind when I tried to visit a prisoner, and it was not in my purse.

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I’m pretty sure I will only find out when I’m actually allowed to vote because I will get a fine for not voting.