Mr Toole holds the seat with an unassailable 23 per cent margin after a massive 36 per cent swing in the 2011 Coalition whitewash, but conventional wisdom would suggest there will be some kind of correction today.

Lithgow voters, in particular, would be expected to swing back to the town’s traditional Labor roots, but there will still be plenty of anxious moments for the party hierarchy as the votes are counted this evening.

The 2011 state election is not the only recent result to suggest there may finally be a change in the air in Lithgow.

At the most recent council elections in 2012, Lithgow voters elected just a single Country Labor candidate to council – Wayne McAndrew.

That was a loss of two positions from the previous council.

Second on the Labor ticket at the council election was Cassandra Coleman, Country Labor’s candidate for the seat of Bathurst today, and she picked up just 64 primary votes.

So it’s not a given that Lithgow will swing heavily back to Labor today and, if it doesn’t, then the result today will be another disaster for the party.

Also interesting will be the strength of support for The Greens today.

Tracey Carpenter, as a former deputy mayor, is well-known in Bathurst and well respected among left-leaning voters.

There’s every chance Ms Carpenter will take primary votes from Ms Coleman, but her how-to-vote cards have preferenced Labor at number two so those votes could go flowing back in the final count.

Regardless of the final figures today, though, Mr Toole, Ms Coleman and Ms Carpenter all deserve our congratulations and thanks for putting their hand up to run in the election.

It’s easy to sit back and criticise politicians, but much harder to put yourself forward to face the judgment of the voters. And without them, we would have no democracy.