Labour’s Poto Williams has a healthy lead in the Christchurch East by-election after the counting of advance votes.

With 3100 votes counted, Williams had collected 2035 of these with National’s Matthew Doocey a distant second on 743.

The by-election was triggered when Labour MP Lianne Dalziel resigned to successfully contest the Christchurch mayoralty.

Dalziel held a comfortable majority in the electorate which was severely hit by the Christchurch quakes.

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