One Malaysian woman in London, Aidila Razak, thought that her GE14 story was over before it started when she did not receive her ballot paper last week.

Express courier delivery was supposed to take three to four days.

And it was only on May 8, one day before Malaysia will go to the polls, that the ballot paper reached her in London to mark her selection.

Determined to vote regardless, a small group of Malaysians in London coordinated their next move: They would fly someone back to KL with all their ballot papers.

The plan to bring the votes back

Everything was coordinated via a Facebook group called GE14: Postal Voters Discussions.

One woman, Amira Shaffee, generously paid for a £700 (approximately S$1,273) ticket to KL.

Another woman offered to board the flight, carrying all the ballot papers to the runners at the KL airport, who would then rush it to the returning officers.

As the flight would leave London, Heathrow Airport at 2.20pm, May 8, and reach KL at 2.25pm on May 9, it was clearly a tight squeeze as polling stations close at 5pm.

KL voters had a good chance of making it on time. As for the other states, they were not so sure if the cut off timing can be met, but they had to try.

Immediately upon receiving her ballot paper at 11.45am, Aidila said she "ran to the train station straight after signing for the package, to the Overground then the Jubilee Line, the Bakerloo and the Heathrow Express and then to the departure lounge of Terminal 3".

At the airport, there were at least 30 others who had dashed down for a chance to send their votes back.

Repaying the kindness

Thanks to the kindness of many other strangers who shared the same passion for exercising their right to vote, Aidila's vote, a grand total of 34 marked ballot papers are now en route to a voting station.

To repay the kind stranger who paid for the air ticket, Aidila and several others managed to collect £160 at the airport.

They are still £540 short, so another Malaysian, Xinyi Ong, started a crowdfunding effort in the Facebook group to cover Amira's expenses, as well as the parking fees incurred by the woman who boarded the flight (which cost £11 an hour) .

A group of strangers who knew nothing about one another, banded together in a mad scramble to get their ballot papers back on time and repay the kindness of others.

According to Aidila, this kindness is something she will never forget:

"I thought my GE14 story was over when my ballot paper didn't arrive by last week...But I didn't account for the kindness of strangers. I will remember this for a lifetime.

For that feeling she gave us, a group of strangers at an airport terminal, all the money in the world is not enough."

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This is Aidila's Facebook post:

Top photo from J.j. Hayashi's Facebook post in GE14: Postal Voters Discussion