Donkey vote on the rise

For the past two elections, voter turn-out across the state has fallen, while the number of informal, or donkey, votes has increased.

University of Sydney politics lecturer Peter Chen said there were many factors behind the rise of informal votes, but high levels of disaffection with politicians was one of them.

Complex issues confront voters in the March 28 poll.

"You see a rise in informal votes when people feel disengaged... more people now are saying they like our democratic system, but hate the politicians and the parties," Dr Chen said.

For people not voting at all, Dr Chen said outside a small core of anarchists, most non-voters chose not to go the polls "purely as an expression of their apathy towards the political system".

"For some people, they feel they are not being offered a lot of choice."

The complexity of the voting system was another factor, with long ballot papers and preferential voting.

Dr Chen said it was more prevalent in Sydney electorates where some voters had poor English skills and made errors.

According to NSW Electoral Commission figures, western Sydney seats had the highest levels of informal votes in the past two elections, with Bankstown the highest with 5.11 per cent in 2011.

However, regional seats are catching up.

Albury, Tweed, Gosford and Maitland electorates all rose to more than 3pc informal votes in 2011, with Albury having the highest level in rural NSW with 3.7pc.

The portion of non-voters also rose in each of these seats, with Tweed having the lowest turnout in regional NSW with only 86.59pc - or more than 13pc of the electorate not voting at all.

Even the Northern Tablelands seat, which historically had less than 1pc informal votes, they rose to 1.2pc in 2011.

Dr Chen said the rise of voters not strongly associated with the major parties was another factor, and in rural seats the phenomenon had also led to the rise of several independent candidates until the 2011 election, when the Nationals won back seats.

"There was a really strong shot fired across the bows of the Nationals, and now we see Nationals candidates becoming more responsive to the people in their electorate."