CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A humble barbequed sausage on a slice of bread sold at polling booths around Australia has been picked as the country's official word of the year — "democracy sausage."

Despite being two words, Australian National Dictionary Center director Amanda Laugesen said on Wednesday that democracy sausage qualified as Australia's word for 2016 because it was essentially a compound word.

The term was first recorded in 2012 to describe the ubiquitous beef sausage sandwiches served with onions, ketchup, barbeque sauce or mustard, which are sold at fundraising stalls outside polling booths.

But it gathered momentum in 2016 when Australia had an extraordinarily long two-month federal election campaign that was so close that the result was not known for days.