Auckland (The NZ Today)
More than 309,000 New Zealanders have already cast their ballots in the 2026 General Election, with advance voting gathering pace just three days after polling opened.
Latest Electoral Commission figures show 309,876 votes had been recorded by the end of Wednesday, October 28.
Voting began on Labour Day, October 26, when 68,900 people cast their ballots.
Turnout then increased sharply to 109,365 votes on Tuesday, before climbing again to 131,611 on Wednesday.
The early voting numbers are running substantially ahead of the same stage in the 2023 election.
Across the equivalent first three voting days in 2023, 235,415 ballots were cast — meaning this year’s total is already about 74,000 votes higher, an increase of roughly 32 percent.
Interestingly, the 2026 figure is almost identical to the comparable early-voting total in 2020.
Across October 26 to 28 that year, 309,357 advance votes were recorded — only around 500 fewer than the 309,876 cast over the same dates this year.
The first-day turnout this year also exceeded 2023, when 65,845 people voted on the equivalent opening day.
The Electoral Commission says its daily figures are collected informally from voting places and may be adjusted later. They also do not include overseas votes.
Advance voting will continue until Friday, November 6, before election day on Saturday, November 7.
The pace of voting will be closely watched over the coming week as parties intensify their final campaign push and an increasing share of voters make their decision before election day itself.
For comparison, a total of 1.64 million advance votes were cast before election day in 2023, while the corresponding figure in 2020 was almost 1.98 million.
Source: New Zealand Electoral Commission / Vote NZ official voting statistics.
