Hundreds of thousands of New South Wales voters have visited local schools, community centres and town halls to cast their ballots in the local elections today.
Nearly a third of the state's councils went to the polls.
Of them 20 are newly merged and the other 26 fought off amalgamation.
There are 1,999 candidates vying for councillor or mayoral positions, with large numbers standing in the amalgamated areas.
Pre-polling was very strong in this election, Richard Caroll from the NSW Electoral Commission said, with about 430,000 votes lodged before this morning.
ABC election analyst Antony Green said he did not think the council amalgamations would be a big factor in the way people voted, but he expected a substantial swing against the Liberal Party.
"The current councils were all elected in 2012 and at the time there was a very unpopular Labor government in the Gillard government, and the Liberals did very well on their first big step into local government," he said.
"Five years later there has been a change of federal government and changes at state governments, I think that those issues will mean the Liberals won't do nearly as well as 2012."
Voting is compulsory and failure to do attracts a $55 fine.
Polling booths are open until 6pm, after which time Green will keep you informed of the results.
