A Mercury analysis of polling booth results for a seat on Wollongong City Council shows a rate of informal votes - if people don't fill out the ballot paper properly they don't count - over 30 per cent at some sites, or worse.

At the Warrawong Public School booth, first preferences had an informal rate of 45 per cent: almost half of the 1,038 people who voted there may not count.

At Cringila Hall, the initial informal rate was almost 35 per cent; at Berkeley Public School it was 34 per cent, at Berkeley Community Centre it was 30 per cent.

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Informal rates were worst at booths in Wollongong's most disadvantaged suburbs.

These results - along with informal rates from suburbs including Figtree, Fairy Meadow and Thirroul - were double, sometimes triple, informal rates from the previous council election of 2017.

Jess Whittaker ran for the Greens in Ward 3, and said since the NSW Electoral Commission banned how-to-vote cards being handed out - as a Covid-fighting measure - many voters were unsure.

"It wouldn't have affected my result too much because we were too far behind," Ms Whittaker said.

"But my general feeling is that this has been a failure of democracy - some of our most marginal communities, and people from non-English speaking backgrounds, people who maybe don't have much opportunity to understand documents like this [are] being left behind and having their vote taken away from them because they couldn't understand the ballot paper."

The NSW Electoral Commission said results are for the initial first preference count and this may change after some ballot papers are clarified.

"The informal figure reported in the initial count of ballot papers can be attributed to the NSWEC policy of directing polling place staff on election night to place any councillor ballot paper marked both above and below the line on the same ballot paper into an 'Others/Informal' pile," a spokeswoman said.

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"The NSWEC does not expect polling place staff to be experts on formality. Many of the councillor ballot papers placed in the 'Others/Informal' pile are indeed formal, and are allocated to candidates/groups during the official count (data entry) process.

"This first preference count conducted in polling places on election night is conducted to give candidates, political parties, the public and the media an indication of the likely outcome of the election. It is not the official count to determine the elected candidates."

It is not clear how significantly the results may change after the final count. The Mercury understands the formality count is not likely to change significantly.

Final council seat positions will be declared on Wednesday.

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