Following the 2018 byelection and 2019 state and federal elections, it will be the fourth trip to the ballot box in just two years for us locals.

This will be an important election for Wagga. Over the last three-and-a-bit years, the nine councillors elected in 2016 have been able to bring some much-needed stability to a council long beset with volatility.

Of course, there are still agendas and rivalries bubbling away among the councillors, but we have seen these surface far more infrequently than in councils of the recent past.

However, this year's council election will be important for another reason; it will be the most expensive local government election in Wagga's history.

The 2020 ballot is tipped to cost ratepayers $425,868, up 34 per cent from $318,992 in 2016.

It would, in fact, have been significantly more than that - the initial estimate was $517,000 - before the NSW government offered the state's councils $19 million to help offset the costs.

How on earth the costs of running a local government election could soar some 62 per cent in the space of just one election cycle is beyond comprehension.

The best the NSW Electoral Commission has offered by way of explanation is that the prices of "hiring venues, paying staff and hikes in the cost of paper, postage and energy" have risen.

It is hard to put a price on democracy, but there simply must be a way to run local government elections more cheaply.

Most, if not all, of the state's councils are struggling with massive infrastructure backlogs and every dollar must be put to its best possible use.

It is too late for this election cycle, but surely by the time 2024 rolls around the polls could be done primarily through an app on our phones, thus cutting down on the number of venues and staff, as well as reducing the paper, postage and energy consumed?

The money saved could then be spent on the things that matter most to our communities - better infrastructure and improved services.