Clark and Key place their votes

ONE NEWS: National and Labour leaders John Key and Helen Clark have cast their votes in a general election that could see a record turnout of voters.

Labour leader Helen Clark and National leader John Key chose schools in their Auckland electorates to give their ticks with other leaders following suit at other booths around the country.

Clark and her husband Peter Davis voted at Kowhai Intermediate School in Mt Eden while Key and his wife Bronagh cast their votes at Parnell School, despite Key leaving his easy vote card at home.

Clark says her party is making every effort to get supporters to the polls.
"I've been out visiting very large headquarters for us, we have countless thousands of people mobilising Labour supporters out to the polling booths today, I'm feeling very good about it," she told reporters.

After placing his vote, Key spent time with campaign workers before heading home to be with his family.

Clark is spending the afternoon at Labour's election headquarters in Auckland.

Doors at New Zealand's 2700 polling stations opened at 9am and close at 7pm.

Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden is aiming to have half of the results in by 10pm and a final result through by 11.30pm.  

Queues began to form at some polling centres shortly after opening and this, together with a record number of advance votes, has electoral officials hopeful that the turnout could be a record.

By 4pm on Friday, 2,979,366 people had enrolled to vote, almost 95% of those eligible, Electoral Enrolment Centre national manager Murray Wicks says.

In 2005 nearly 2.3 million people voted.

Peden says the number of advance votes - more than 200,000 - could be significant.

It is around 30% higher than the number of advance votes received in 2005, when 80% of eligible electors voted.

The first advance votes results should be known by 9pm.