​If you live in inner Sydney, your vote for Lord Mayor this September will be worth half that of a business. A convenience store gets two votes; a bank gets two votes; an absent landowner gets two votes. Residents get one.

That a business has any vote at all is galling enough. So is the fact owning property is still a qualification as an elector, a century-and-a-half after most places dumped it? But most offensive to democracy is the fact an individual's voting power will be 50 per cent that of a business.

Ordinarily, Clover Moore would be facing an it's-time election. After 12 years in elected leadership, any incumbent would expect a sizeable vote against another term, even with the new team she announced over the weekend.

But if her Liberal opponent, Christine Forster, wins, her victory will be soured by an appalling gerrymander, among the worst in a long history of state government meddling to get the city council it wants.