Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick has praised the "phenomenal" turnout ahead of a youth rally in Auckland City today.
The Auckland Central candidate said the political party is having "a wee bit of a rally" to celebrate Auckland going to Alert Level 1.
The rally would bring together "people from all across the spectrum in Auckland Central and those who want to travel in to just talk about the things that matter", Swarbrick said.
The group will then "do a walking school bus, in the most Green Party fashion possible" before casting their votes.
Swarbrick said the Green campaign for the Auckland Central seat has been "extracting everything out of every second".
"We know that we have to flip approximately 1500 votes from [Labour's Auckland Central candidate Helen White] to myself to win and we are doing everything to also turn out the youth vote," she said.
"On the ground, things feel phenomenal ... It is also going to be a matter of continuing to remind people of how powerful they are, so that's what we're doing."
Swarbrick said there has not only been an uptake in early voting, but also an "amazing increase - a doubling - of overseas voters casting their special votes".
"I am really hoping that if anything, the silver lining of this experience of Covid-19 bringing our communities together, has shown people that we're only as strong as their most vulnerable, that there is a real importance in thinking about the social contract and each other when we go and cast those ballots, so I'm hoping we get a higher voter turnout than we usually do."
Greens co-leader James Shaw said he suspects the early voter turnout is due to people having already "made their minds up a wihle ago" on who they would vote for before the decision was made to push back the general election one month to October 17.
More than 700,000 people have voted as of Friday, with a further 300,000 expected to vote today.
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