More than one million New Zealanders have already voted ahead of the country’s general election on Saturday, 7 November, according to the latest Electoral Commission statistics, with party leaders making their final appeals in a race the last poll calls a dead heat.
The Otago Daily Times, reporting the commission’s latest voting statistics on 3 November, said 159,994 people voted on Monday, taking the cumulative early-vote total to 1,074,416. That figure does not include overseas votes.
Ahead of 2023, behind 2020
The total is well ahead of the same stage in 2023, when 860,668 people had cast an early vote, but behind the equivalent point in 2020, when 1,282,028 had voted early. The early-vote surge is therefore a sharp rise on the last election, not an all-time record pace, and this article does not claim otherwise.
The first week of advance voting alone produced 913,762 votes between 26 October and 1 November, Reuters reported on 2 November, citing the Electoral Commission. That was a 28 percent jump on the same period in 2023, with Saturday the busiest single day at more than 190,000 votes issued.
Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le Quesne said voting had got off to a good start. About 600 voting places are open daily this week, rising to more than 2,300 on election day, according to Reuters and the Otago Daily Times.
The strong turnout has come despite controversial new enrolment rules that ended enrolment 13 days before election day, a change critics argued could deter participation, Reuters reported.
A dead-heat final poll
The final 1News Verian poll, released on 3 November, put the governing National Party on 30 percent, up one point, narrowly ahead of Labour on 29 percent, up two points. The Greens were on 16 percent, ACT on 10 percent, New Zealand First on 8 percent and the centrist Opportunity party on 6 percent.
On those numbers neither the right bloc nor the left bloc would command a majority alone: 1News reported the right bloc on 58 seats, while the left bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori would hold 56 or 60 MPs depending on how the Maori seats are calculated. Both sides would need Opportunity’s support to form a government.
In the preferred prime minister rankings, National leader Christopher Luxon was down one point to 23 percent, while Labour leader Chris Hipkins was up one point to 19 percent. Luxon said the only poll that matters is on Saturday, while Hipkins said Labour had developed some real momentum in recent weeks. Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong said her party would speak first to the party with the most seats.
What happens next
Advance voting runs until 6 November, with election day on Saturday, 7 November. No updated cumulative total beyond Monday’s 1,074,416 had been verified at the time of writing, and no Tuesday total is claimed here.
Sources: Otago Daily Times — 1 million have now voted early; 1News — Final poll: Election set to go down to wire; Reuters via SRN News — New Zealand early voting surges
Frequently asked questions
When is New Zealand’s election? Saturday, 7 November 2026.
Is early voting a record? It is ahead of the 2023 pace but behind the equivalent point in 2020, according to Electoral Commission statistics.
