They are the only two genuine independents standing for the House of Representatives in ACT electorates. The other candidates are backed by parties and their money.

"You crazy bastard," a customer in a coffee shop next to the Civic pre-poll station calls genially to Mr Bohm. The candidate takes the joshing in good humour.

He says he will regard it as a victory in the Canberra electorate if he gets the issues he cares about noticed - faster trains and tracks to Sydney, in particular.

Few give Dr Christie a chance of toppling Labor in the Bean electorate, either - except himself.

His hope is based on a recent YouGov poll which gave him 17 per cent of the seat's primary vote compared with 44 per cent for Labor and 24 per cent for the Liberals. He reasons that if he can persuade enough voters to give him their second preferences, he will be an MP.

"If Liberals rank me ahead of Labor - and I can't see why they wouldn't - then I'm in with a chance."

Hope is a wonderful thing.

And so is enthusiasm and an uncynical belief in democracy. "I'm standing because I have a responsibility as a citizen," Dr Christie said (the doctor title is a medical one after three decades in Canberra hospitals, much of it in emergency medicine).

He diagnoses a sickness on The Hill which needs healing. "There's no question we've got disillusionment and a failure of trust in our political system, and the reason for that is that they just say what they think you want to hear so it's an empty sales pitch," he said.

He is local: "I've Yabbie'd at Angle Crossing, camped along Paddys River, barbequed at Pine Island, and done the school excursion to Tidbinbilla to be hassled by the emus."

He puts the cost of campaigning at around $100,000, though he will get some back from the Electoral Commission depending on how many votes he gets - so he reckons he will be $30,000 out of pocket in the end. Part of the funding came from his long-service entitlement as a doctor. Instead of taking the time off, he took the cash to further the cause.

He is refreshingly indiscreet. He said he approached moneyed Climate 2000 but they wouldn't back him: "I wasn't a private-school-educated, professional woman who should be in the Liberal Party, so they weren't interested."

It's true that his partner is behind him, though her fervour seems to have waned a little from the last time he stood in 2019. "She was enthusiastic last time but this time she is accepting."

Canberra-born Mr Bohm's team also consists of his family: "The campaign manager is my eleven-year-old. The campaign director is the nine-year-old and the volunteer coordinator is my six-year-old.

"It's a tight team, with lots of fighting."

Both candidates feel strongly that global warming needs to be addressed. "Real climate action," is top of Dr Christie's agenda.

Mr Bohm says: "I've got three kids and I would like to leave the planet in a good state for them."

He ran in the 2013 election under the alluring slogan, "Bullet train For Canberra - the LEAST annoying party".

He says that campaigning is fun (except when it's not).

His corflutes cost $15 each but he cuts them in two to get two for the price of one. They keep getting knocked down, though not, he thinks, any more than those of any other candidate except those of the United Australia Party.

And looking on the positive side (which Mr Bohm tends to do), he points out that sometimes strangers put his corflutes back up.

Both candidates see themselves as citizens who are outsiders who can contribute to society. Actually winning the seat would be a great victory - but just having an impact would also be a kind of victory.

As Mr Bohm put it: "If I help fix the broken two-party system, that's winning.

"If I make it easier for the next independent, that's winning, too."