More than half of the votes have now been counted in the Invercargill electorate and Labour's Liz Craig has extended her lead over National's Penny Simmonds to 700 votes.

There have been 22,121 votes counted (51.6%) in Invercargill where, in line with national trends, Labour has established a firm lead in the party vote - 49.6% to National's 28.7%.