Election day on the North Shore is still pending but there are some early numbers in to parse.
After five days of advance voting in the District of West Vancouver, 2,719 residents had cast ballots and another 303 came in via mail. That’s an increase over 2018 numbers when there were 2,476 early voters over seven days and 182 mail-in votes.
In the District of North Vancouver, 1,952 people have cast advance ballots – about 2.9 per cent of the 66,411 eligible voter base. That’s down from 2,349 in the run-up to election day in 2018.
In the City of North Vancouver, 2,257 eligible electors found their way into an advance voting station after five days. As of Oct. 13, there had also been 290 mail-in ballots received. With one day left of advance voting in 2018, the city had 1,958 early ballots.
None of the votes in any of the municipalities will be counted until the polls close at 8 p.m. on election day.
Creating more opportunities for advance voting is generally thought to help boost overall turnout as it makes the process more convenient.
Pundits tend to look at advance voter turnout as a barometer for the public’s level of engagement in the campaign as a whole.
While some people choose advance voting because they know they’ll be out of town on e-day, or because they want to avoid lineups, candidates running for office also tend to encourage their supporters to vote early to lock in their support and allow them to focus their campaign energies elsewhere.
General voting day is Saturday, Oct. 15. Visit our 2022 Civic Election webpage for more election news, including candidate Q&As and where and how to vote on the North Shore.
Not sure if you are already registered to vote? The Election BC's online voter registration system allows you to check if you are already registered to vote, register as a future voter or update your voter registration details for future elections.
