Advanced votes increase

The hall at Little Akaloa on Banks Peninsula, near Christchurch, where only 33 votes were cast in 2002. Picture / Simon Baker

The Chief Electoral Office expects a 15 per cent increase in advance votes.

By Tuesday night, 99,766 people had cast advance votes - well on the way to exceeding the 130,000 cast during the advance voting period in 2002.

Chief Electoral Officer David Henry said the office estimated it would get 20,000 more votes by 4pm tomorrow, when advance voting closes.

Demand has been so great that two advance voting facilities in Mt Albert ran out of ballot papers and declaration forms on the weekend, causing waits of up to 20 minutes while additional papers were retrieved from a central office.

There are 2700 polling stations and 15,000 ballot boxes nationwide for this year's election.

One of the smallest stations is Little Akaloa, on Banks Peninsula, where only 33 votes were cast in the 2002 election. A maximum of 60 votes are expected this year.

Mr Henry said all advance voting facilities were "over-supplied", but the difficulty electoral staff faced was that people could vote at any venue, making demand unpredictable.

He said the increased turnout so far could be attributed to higher voter interest and greater publicity for advance voting.