About 4m voters will head to the polls in New South Wales today with incumbent premier Mike Baird squaring off against Labor leader Luke Foley.
There are around 2,800 polling places across the state, and voters will use about 60,000 pens, which replace pencils for the first time, to fill out ballot papers. There have already been 595,000 pre-poll votes and 206,000 iVotes.
The fine for not voting is $55.
There are 93 seats in the lower house of the New South Wales parliament so 47 are needed to form a government.
The Baird-led Coalition currently holds 69. Labor has 23.
A record number of people have nominated for the 21-seat upper house with 394 names on the ballot paper. 540 people are running for the lower house making the ballot paper 1m long.
NSW has an economy of about $470bn, making up about 30% of the national output. The next largest economy, Victoria, accounts for about 22%.
