INCREASING numbers of Newcastle residents chose to vote early this election, ditching the long queues and fundraising sausage sizzles, at the same time as they laid the foundation for Nuatali Nelmes' defeat.
In total, about 34 per cent of the almost 99,000 Newcastle residents counted as having voted so far, decided to cast their ballots early at a pre-poll station in the local government election.
There were 33,653 pre-poll votes this year, compared to 25,609 out of 103,000 in the 2021 election.
This represents an increase of 8000-odd people, or 31 per cent.
The data shows that it was the pre-poll voters who set the platform for Independent Ross Kerridge to win the lord mayoral vote.
This is despite the fact that many believe pre-polling leads to uneven playing fields between major parties as opposed to minor parties and independents, due to the latter having fewer resources to man voting locations.
Of the 33,653 pre-poll voters across Newcastle, 13,075 voted for Cr Kerridge and 10,109 for Ms Nelmes, a difference of 2966 votes.
As of Thursday, Cr Kerridge was 3146 votes ahead of Ms Nelmes, who conceded on Tuesday night after realising she was unable to bridge the gap.
This means, to date, pre-poll stations have delivered all but 180 of Cr Kerridge's winning votes.
In 2021, Ms Nelmes received roughly the same number of pre-poll votes as this year, or 10,046, compared to her then challenger Independent John Church with 8282.
Election analyst Ben Raue, of The Tally Room, said pre-polling had been on the increase in federal and state elections for "a long time".
Mr Raue said early voting options, including pre-poll and postal, were designed for people who can't make it to their local polling booth on election day.
He said pre-poll voting tends to be more popular in rural and regional areas.
"Ultimately it's just a different method of people voting ... but once people do it once, they tend to get a taste for it and they want to do it again," he said.
"I think sometimes pre-poll voters are more likely to know how they're voting, but I don't have solid data for that."
The Newcastle Herald reported three days out from the election that pre-poll numbers were down across the Hunter, sitting at only about 13 per cent of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie voters.
Pre-poll voting for the NSW local government election was open for one week this year, cut from two weeks. The majority of people using pre-poll stations tend to vote in the last two days before the election.
When pre-poll voting, people are asked to verbally declare the reason they are voting early.
Mr Raue said in the 2019 federal election, Labor won the majority of the two-party preferred vote on election day, but lost due to pre-poll and postal votes.
He said this would not have been possible before the boom in early voting because it used to make up such a small share of the votes.
Almost a quarter of Australians voted at a pre-poll station in the 2016 federal election, compared to about 8 per cent in 2007.
Mr Raue said pre-poll voting was convenient for a lot of people.
"I don't think I've seen evidence that pre-poll voting is actually changing the result," he said.
"It's just structuring how the data comes to us and it certainly makes calling the election night harder."
It is likely that there will be an increase in Newcastle residents who did not vote this year and will face a $55 fine.
